The House Judiciary Committee revealed Tuesday evening that Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is threatening to fire Border Patrol agents if they aren't full vaccinated by November.
'As the brave men and women of U.S. Border Patrol work tirelessly to respond to the Administration's manufactured border crisis, we have learned that the Department of Homeland Security has threatened to fire Border Patrol officers who refuse to comply with President Biden's vaccine mandate,' a letter to Mayorkas from GOP leaders on the panel reads.
The letter was penned by Judiciary Ranking Member Representative Jim Jordan and Subcommittee on Immigration and Citizenship Ranking Member Representative Tom McClintock.
It stems, they wrote, from a whistleblower revealing an official notice was sent to agents that they must be fully vaccinated by November 2021, to fall in compliance with President Joe Biden's federal-level vaccine mandate, or else be fired.
To be 'fully vaccinated' it must be two weeks since a person received either the second of two jabs from Pfizer or Moderna or the one-off vaccine from Johnson & Johnson.
'While our border is facing this serious crisis,' they wrote, 'we learned that you are threatening to terminate a significant portion of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) workforce,' Jordan, a staunch Trump ally, and McClintock wrote.
They claim that this new order will only exacerbate the southern border crisis.
'President Biden's vaccine mandate, as applied to CBP, risks reducing the already-depleted Border Patrol workforce in the middle of the unfolding border crisis,' the letter to Mayorkas reads.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is ordering all Customs and Border Protection agents be fully vaccinated against coronavirus by November 2021 or else face termination
A whistleblower revealed to Republicans on the Judiciary Committee that the official order was sent to agents by Mayorkas
Ranking Member Jim Jordan and Subcommittee on Immigration and Citizenship Ranking Member Tom McClintock wrote in a letter to Mayorkas that the order would just lead to staffing issues and further exacerbate the southern border crisis
It is not clear how many CBP agents have been vaccinated already, and the agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
While agents are facing the decision between getting vaccinated against COVID-19 or being fired, the thousands of illegal immigrants who flood the border each day are more than likely not vaccinated and in the vast majority of cases, according to several reports, are not even tested for coronavirus before being released into U.S. communities.
Many communities have pleaded with the administration to stop sending these migrants to their towns and cities, claiming they are spiking COVID cases.
Jordan and McClintock also explained in their letter how it is already difficult to recruit and retain people to work as Border Patrol agents considering jobs are often in remote areas of the country and the nature of the job is 'dangerous and hard'
'The job is made even harder when senior officials, including Vice President Kamala Harris, spread false accusations of cruelty – as has occurred in recent days to mounted officers in Del Rio – while ignoring reports of attacks against Border Patrol personnel,' the dup added in taking a hit at Harris, who Biden put in charge of mitigating the southern border crisis earlier this year.
A migrans woman and child exit a Border Patrol bus on September 22 as they are released from custody after seeking asylum in crossing into the U.S. from Mexico
Images of agents on horseback wielding split reins – like this one from September 19 – went viral after many claims they were 'whipping' a group of mostly Haitian migrants. Agents assure they were only using the reins to direct horses and deter illegal crossings
Mayorkas is receiving much of the backlash related to the crisis. Never Again Action, a Jewish anti-ICE group, hung a 30-foot silver banner on his D.C. home on Monday in protest of the Biden administration's recent string of deportations of illegal Haitian immigrants
In recent weeks, a group of around 15,000 mostly Haitian migrants set up a makeshift encampment near the Del Rio International Bridge at Texas' border with Mexico. DHS decided to ramp up deportation efforts on these illegal immigrants, leading to images of horseback agents appearing to use the horses' split reins as whips.
The agents insist they were only using the reins to direct the horse and deter migrants – and were not using them to whip them.
Mayorkas announced last week that the agents in question were reassigned to administrative duties as their alleged use of split reins on migrants is investigated.
Harris spoke with Mayorkas last week about the incident, and the White House said agents in Del Rio will no longer be operating on horseback.
Another caravan of thousands of migrants – many Haitian – are still making the trek from South America to the northern Mexico border to seek asylum in the U.S.
Last week 12 deportation flights took place bringing migrants in the U.S. back to their homeland.
Mayorkas, whose agency leads CBP and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, is receiving the brunt of the backlash for the southern border crisis, which has grown exponentially under the Biden administration.
On Monday, a group of anti-ICE protesters hung a 30-foot banner outside Mayorkas’ private D.C. residence that read in giant red letters: 'Biden President Trump Policy.'
Mayorkas' wife Tanya had a run in with the chanting protesters outside their home.
'We talked briefly to the wife of DHS Secretary Mayorkas,' Never Again Action, a Jewish organization advocating for the abolition of ICE, posted on Twitter. 'She was very angry, and told us that this was her family home.'
Never Again Action said Mayorkas' wife said she was 'angry' that they were protesting at her 'family home' when they ran in to her on Monday
Tanya Mayorkas, the secretary's wife, (pictured with her dog above) had a run in with the protesters, who claim she was 'angry' over the protest outside her and her husband's personal DC residence
Tanya (left) and Alejandro Mayorkas (right) have two daughters, Giselle and Amelia
'And we really do understand that,' they continued in a Monday Twitter thread. 'But again, there are families being torn apart every day. There are people being deported from their home forever, every day.'
They included a video of Tanya Mayorkas walking away with her dog on a leash along with what appears to be a plain-clothes security guard.
'We know that doing an action at someone's house can make things personal & bring families into the equation,' Never Again tweeted. 'But our first responsibility is to the personal trauma and the families torn apart by Trump's policies, that the Biden administration continues to use against immigrants.'
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