Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Wednesday that there were “mistakes made” in failing to test some illegal immigrants for the coronavirus before they were released into communities.
But he was unable to tell Congress how many people were released without testing.
Mr. Mayorkas repeatedly said it “is our policy” to test, though he was unable to say how often that was happening.
“There have been times when we have not met our responsibility as well as we should have. Those instances are brought to the attention of leadership, and they are addressed, and we improved based on the mistakes made,” he said.
Mr. Mayorkas said the policy has been to hope local communities are able to do testing when Border Patrol agents release migrants into the community. That has happened in some areas, but other regions lacked the capacity.
Local officials estimate thousands of people were released without testing.
And even when someone did test positive, local officials had no ability to isolate or quarantine them in the early going. Now, Mr. Mayorkas says, they are being reimbursed by the federal government for those costs.
