Texas Sen. John Cornyn berates Biden's Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas

Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn demanded Tuesday that Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas apologize to all the parents who've lost their children from fentanyl overdoses during a fiery border hearing. 

Mayorkas was testifying in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee and got hammered by Republican senators over the flood of migrants - and fentanyl - coming over the border. 

'Mr. Secretary, would you like to take the opportunity today to apologize to these parents who lost their children to fentanyl poisoning because of the policies of your department and the Biden administration? Would you like to apologize to them?' Cornyn asked. 

Mayorkas responded that his heart was with the family of every victim of a drug overdose death. 

'Is that an apology?' Cornyn asked. 'You won't even apologize to these parents - like so many other parents - who have lost their teenage children to counterfeit drugs laced with fentanyl.' 

Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn demanded Tuesday that Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas apologize to all the parents who've lost their children from fentanyl overdoses during a fiery border hearing.

Mayorkas told the Texas Republican: 'We are bringing unprecedented force in the fight.'

'And you're losing!' Cornyn yelled. 

Cornyn was also aghast when Mayorkas testified that he was unaware of Mexican drug cartels using illegal immigrants to distract Border Patrol so contraband could be snuck into the United States. 

In February, John Modlin, chief patrol agent in Arizona's Tucson sector, told lawmakers that cartels are using a tactic called 'task saturation,' in which they're dividing up groups of border crossers so it takes more agents to find them. 

'Task saturation is a term we use to describe a tactic where smuggling organizations split large groups of migrants into many smaller groups. These small groups are then directed to illegally cross the border all at once and at different locations, effectively saturating the area with migrants and exhausting our response capability,' Modlin described at a Congressional hearing last week. 

Cartels are using drones to keep tabs on agents. 

Mayorkas told lawmakers Tuesday that the 'scourge of fentanyl' is not related to the record migrant crossings. 

'I am not aware of that as a strategy,' Mayorkas countered when Cornyn tried to tie the 'task saturation' cartels are utilizing to the fentanyl crisis. 

Mayorkas said that most fentanyl is coming into the U.S. hidden at checkpoints, not being snuck over the border by migrants.  

'You've simply lost all credibility, Mr. Secretary,' Cornyn said.

The hearing also got heated when Texas Sen. Ted Cruz asked Mayorkas how many migrants have died during Biden's tenure. 

Mayorkas shot back that the Texas Republican's 'phrasing of the question is actually quite misleading.' 

But then answered 'I do not,' when pressed by Cruz for a figure.  

'Of course you don't! I know how many died, 853! … You go back to 1998, you see it's consistently between 300 to 400… Suddenly 2021. What happens? You get in office!' Cruz said. 

Cruz gesticulated toward a chart that showed the uptick in migrant deaths. 

'That red line - are dead bodies!' Cruz yelled. 

Cornyn's confrontation with Mayorkas comes as the Texas senator has been criticized for saying Monday that Congress has done all it can on gun legislation to protect kids from being massacred in the classroom.

In the wake of yet another mass shooting, this time at a private Christian school in Nashville, Tennessee, Cornyn - one of the GOP senators to negotiate a gun control bill last year - was asked about President Joe Biden's proposal to ban semi-automatic rifles and further strengthen background checks. 

He said Biden was reiterating 'tired talking points.'

'I would say we've gone about as far as we can go - unless somebody identifies some area that we didn't address,' Cornyn told reporters on Capitol Hill. 

On Tuesday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre criticized that sentiment, without naming Cornyn, saying comments like that were 'devastating' to these families. 

'They lost their kids yesterday and that's what they're saying? We should not be saying there's nothing else to do. We should be trying to figure out what else there can be to do,' Jean-Pierre said on CNN This Morning.