The Sconi

Republican Wisconsin U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson and the Department of Homeland Security's secretary earlier this week expressed differing definitions of "closed" as it pertains to the nation's southern border.

During an at times testy exchange during a hearing in Washington, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas maintained the border is "closed" while Johnson maintained it can't be with more than a million illegal migrants apprehended at the border.

"I want some numbers here," Johnson, seated before a graphic of border apprehensions, asked Mayorkas during the hearing. "Of the 1.3 million people that we've apprehended, how many people have been returned? How many people are being detained? How many people have been dispersed to all points around America?"

Mayorkas said he would be pleased to provide the data, but said he didn't have the data at the ready.

"I want them now," Johnson said. "Why don't you have that information now?"

Mayorkas said he wanted the information to be accurate.

It was at this point that Johnson got to their differing definitions of "close."

"You have repeatedly stated that our borders are not open, they're closed," Johnson said. "Do you honestly believe that our borders are closed?"

Mayorkas said he did believe the borders are closed.

Johnson said he wanted to ask Mayorkas "a couple questions" and then read from a letter to Senate leaders by former U.S. Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott. In his five-page letter, Scott said he was "sickened by the avoidable and rapid disintegration of what was arguably the most effective border security in our nation's history."

The exchange between Johnson and Mayorkas occurred during Tuesday's (Sept. 21) full Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs hearing to examine "threats to the homeland" and to evaluate "the landscape 20 years after 9/11."

Earlier, in his opening testimony, Mayorkas told committee members that the Biden-Harris administration "is committed to stemming the flow of irregular migration" and is taking steps to make that happen. Those steps include "engaging with foreign governments and other partners to address the insecurity, violence, corruption and systemic poverty that drive people from their homes."

The administration is also working to provide humanitarian refugees with options "as close to home as possible," including refugee resettlement and family reunification programs, while also "ensuring shared responsibility with other countries in the region," Mayorkas said in his opening testimony.

"While these efforts will dramatically improve migration management in the region and help restore safe and orderly processing at the border, they will take time," he said. "Addressing longstanding challenges cannot be accomplished overnight."

Later in the day, Johnson took to social media to challenge Mayorkas' insistence that the U.S. southern border is somehow "closed."

"[About] 1.3 million apprehensions YTD, over 6,700 per day for the last two months and @SecMayorkas still claims the border is closed," Johnson said in a Twitter post. "He is completely delusional, as is his boss."

Earlier this month, Johnson questioned why drone coverage has been banned along the U.S. southern border, saying that "the American public have a right to know the crisis that is happening on our borders, and the suppression of the media’s ability to tell that story is deeply troubling."