HELENA – Citing the continued failure to enforce federal law and secure the southern border, Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen joined a coalition of 14 state attorneys general in calling for President Biden’s Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to leave office.

In a letter to Secretary Mayorkas, the 14 attorneys general outline the leadership failures that have exposed communities in Montana and around the country to increased dangerous drugs and crime. In the midst of the national opioid crisis, Mexican drug cartels wasted no time exploiting the open border policies to traffic fentanyl and methamphetamine into the United States.

“President Biden’s failed border policies have flung the door wide open for illegal immigration and drugs to pour into our country – and Montanans are paying the price of increased crime and drug deaths,” Attorney General Knudsen said. “Secretary Mayorkas’s decisions not to enforce basic immigration law have resulted in an effective ‘stand down’ order for Border Patrol and caused, in his own words, conditions at the border that are perhaps the worst they have ever been. He must resign.”

The attorneys general also explained that under Secretary Mayorkas’s watch, not only are unknown amounts of deadly drugs flooding into the country, but with no attempt to vet or certify the thousands of illegal immigrants crossing the southern border, there is no way of knowing who is coming into the country.

“The number of sex offenders arrested entering our country increased by an astounding 213 percent over the last fiscal year. Given your unlawful catch and release policies, we are left with many other unanswerable questions, like how many children are now being trafficked in our communities and how many sex offenders now prowl our streets,” Knudsen and the attorneys general wrote. “Deportations have fallen a staggering 70 percent since 2020…Perhaps most egregiously, you have refused to deport some of the most dangerous criminals, even though you are required by law to do so.”

Mayorkas has faced increasing criticism from his own Border Patrol agents, while the Western States Sheriffs’ Association recently called on President Biden “to take appropriate steps to remove Secretary Mayorkas from his leadership position.”

To read the full letter from Knudsen and the other attorneys general, click here.

Attorney General Knudsen joined the attorneys general of the following states in calling for Mayorkas to resign: Florida, Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, West Virginia.