Hearing Turns Into a Fight Over Migrant Children
Markwayne Mullin testified Thursday before the House Appropriations Committee during a Department of Homeland Security oversight hearing, and the session quickly turned into the kind of congressional theater that makes people wonder why C-SPAN has not started charging admission. Rep. Rosa DeLauro pressed him about children separated from their families, saying 3,900 children were split up. Mullin pushed back hard, arguing that the larger scandal was the Biden administration’s failure to track an estimated 450,000 unaccompanied migrant children. The two sides were not even arguing from the same scoreboard, which is usually a bad sign in Washington, unless the goal is simply to keep the talking points machines humming.
Mullin Accuses DeLauro of Silence
Mullin said DeLauro and other Democrats did not say much when the missing-children crisis was unfolding under President Biden. He told her, “You didn’t say a word about it,” and accused her of hypocrisy for suddenly sounding alarmed now. DeLauro snapped back that it was her time to speak and asked the chairman to rein him in. That is one of the oldest tricks in committee hearings, right up there with reading a long statement and pretending the other side cannot hear you. The exchange showed how badly immigration policy has been reduced to partisan scoring, while the actual children caught in the system remain the part everyone claims to be outraged about.
New Deportation Rules Add More Heat
The clash came after an appeals court allowed the Trump administration to resume swift deportations under its “Protecting the American People Against Invasion” order. That ruling gave Republicans fresh ammunition and made Democratic complaints sound even more selective. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has said some of the unaccompanied children lost under the Biden years were placed with unvetted sponsors and, in some cases, abused or sexually assaulted. Those are the ugly details that should have gotten more attention long ago, but Washington often prefers outrage on a schedule, preferably one that fits the camera angle.
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