The U.S. Homeland Security secretary said he’s not worried about setting a precedent on open borders by allowing thousands of unaccompanied minors to enter the country from Mexico.

“The border is closed,” Alejandro Mayorkas said on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” adding that immigration authorities are expelling families and single adults, but not children who cross the border alone.

“We will not expel into the Mexican desert, for example, three orphan children whom I saw over the last two weeks. We just won’t do that,” Mayorkas said.

A major focus for the Biden administration, he said, is rebuilding “orderly systems” in Mexico and Central America to discourage would-be migrants from traveling to the U.S. border.

“It takes time, because the entire system was dismantled” by the prior administration, he said on “Fox News Sunday.”

The Homeland chief spoke on four Sunday talk shows as pressure mounts on the Biden administration over conditions at the U.S.-Mexico border.

“We are elevating our messaging, so that the individuals do know that they cannot come to the border,” he said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Mayorkas on Friday traveled to El Paso, Texas, with two Democratic and two Republican senators to view first-hand the processing and housing for unaccompanied minors.

That closed out a week in which the White House heard from members of both parties describing the U.S. southwest border situation as a mess.

Congressional Republicans blame Biden for policies they say are encouraging a new wave of immigrants. Mayorkas, and many Democrats, says fault lies with former President Donald Trump and his administration, which they argue left behind an inhumane and inadequate system to deal with influx.

Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, a Republican hardliner on immigration, blamed the border surge on the new administration’s swift move to end Trump policies that sent families, children and other border crossers back to Mexico or flown to their home countries.

“The border right now is wide open because the Biden administration dismantled the very effective policies of the Trump administration and the agreements we had with Mexico and other Latin American countries,” Cotton said on “Fox News Sunday.”

GOP Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas also urged the administration to revisit the Migration Protection Protocols of President Donald Trump. Asked about abuses of would-be migrants kept away from the U.S. border under those deals, he said: “It’s a good policy because it deterred. Deterrence is the key here.”

Not in dispute is that the border crossings have quickly become a political liability for the two-month-old Biden administration, which now owns the responsibility to deal with the problems created. Lawmakers also are raising security and COVID-19 infections as issues.

Mayorkas’ trip on Friday was closed to the media. Challenged on that, the secretary cited the need to take precautions against COVID-19 spread. “We are working on providing footage,” he said on Fox.

Republican lawmakers are streaming to the southwest border to highlight the problems, including Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, who plans to visit an Arizona border outpost on Sunday. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has already made the trip with a group of GOP colleagues.

One of the two Republicans who traveled with Mayorkas on Friday, Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio, tweeted about “dismantling” the Trump administration’s policies with no thought to the ramifications.

Democrat Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut tweeted that he “fought back tears” from what he saw on the trip.

“The Biden Administration is trying their best to uphold the rule of law with humanity. They have a ton of work ahead to clean up the mess Trump left them, but their intentions are true,” tweeted Murphy.

Mayorkas refused during an appearance Wednesday before the House Committee on Homeland Security to agree that the problems had reached the level of “a crisis,” further aggravating some Republicans.

The U.S. has seen a dramatic spike in the number of people encountered by border officials in recent weeks. That includes 18,945 family members encountered in February alone, an increase of 168 percent from January, according to the Pew Research Center.

Officials are looking for ways to boost capacity to house and care for migrants now in federal custody.

Axios reported Saturday that the Biden administration has awarded an $86 million contract for hotel rooms near the border to hold about 1,200 migrant family members. The Washington Post reported that customs officials are considering flying migrants to states near the Canadian border for processing.

Asked about the report, Mayorkas said on CNN that “we don’t have those plans in place now. But what we are doing is, we are putting all options on the table, as it is our responsibility to do.”

The biggest challenge faced by Biden’s administration is that of unaccompanied children. They’re allowed to enter the country in the custody of Customs and Border Protection, even as most adults and families are sent away. More than 9,600 entered the U.S. in February, triple the number who arrived in February 2020, according to data released earlier this month.

On CNN, Mayorkas said three facilities had been established in the last week to help move children out of border patrol stations.

McCarthy told reporters on Thursday, “This entire crisis is created simply by Joe Biden’s actions and words.” On Saturday he tweeted that Democrats need to “DO SOMETHING.”

Congressional Republicans also criticized House Democrats for being “tone deaf” on timing, after passing two immigration bills last week they say will only inspire more treks from Mexico and Central America.

One of those measures would provide green cards and eventual citizenship to young undocumented immigrants, known as Dreamers, who were brought to the U.S. as children, and legal status for migrant agricultural workers.

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