House Republicans looking to impeach Alejandro Mayorkas give him ‘last chance’ warning
House Republicans pursuing the impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas demanded Wednesday that he submit written testimony, warning that it was his “last chance” to answer for his handling of the southern border crisis.
“The Committee has given Secretary Mayorkas chance after chance to appear and explain his actions, decisions, and statements to us and to the American people,” House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green (R-Tenn.) said in a statement.
“Over the past several months, he has tacitly rejected those offers, resorting instead to political games and delay. We would have liked to include his oral testimony in the official record of these historic proceedings.”
Green said his committee “will not accept indefinite delays” and the “request for written testimony from Secretary Mayorkas is his last chance to show some semblance of respect for the people’s representatives and our constitutional oversight duties.”
“The American people are begging for Congress to act, and we will heed that call. Congressional oversight will continue, with or without Secretary Mayorkas’ cooperation,” he added.
In a letter to Mayorkas, Green added that the secretary has evaded “every invitation for almost half a year” to testify, but DHS claimed that the committee had not worked with it to find a date that fit the secretary’s schedule.
Mayorkas informed Green last week that he would be unable to attend Thursday’s second public hearing in the impeachment probe, since he was hosting a delegation of Mexican officials on the same day.
“It’s abundantly clear that they are not interested in hearing from Secretary Mayorkas since it doesn’t fit into their bad-faith, predetermined and unconstitutional rush to impeach him,” DHS press secretary Mia Ehrenberg said.
“Last week, the Secretary offered to testify publicly before the Committee; in the time since, the Committee failed to respond to DHS to find a mutually agreeable date. Instead, they provided this offer of written testimony to the media before any outreach to the Department.”
She dismissed the chairman’s statement and request for written testimony as “just the latest example of Committee Republicans’ sham process.”
On Jan. 10, the House committee took the rare step of starting impeachment proceedings against a cabinet official, with Green calling Mayorkas the “architect” of a border crisis that has seen record-setting numbers of migrants coming into the country.
US Customs and Border Protection has apprehended at least 8.5 million migrants since President Biden took office in January 2021 — of whom 7 million were encountered after entering the country from Mexico.
During a recent meeting at the overrun entry port of Eagle Pass, Texas, Mayorkas told border agents that more than 85% of those asylum seekers are being released into the US, according to Fox News.
Additionally, more than 1.5 million “gotaways,” or migrants who evaded Border Patrol agents, have entered the US under the Biden administration, prompting Mayorkas to testify to Congress last October that the immigration system was “broken.”
Three Republican state attorneys general told Green’s committee during last week’s hearing that the Homeland Security secretary had failed to enforce border laws and misled Congress by saying the administration has “operational control” of the border.
The state AGs — Austin Knudsen of Montana, Gentner Drummond of Oklahoma and Andrew Bailey of Missouri — noted spiking rates of drug trafficking and related deaths in their states as a result of “bogus” asylum claims allowed by Biden’s border czar.
“We don’t deserve to have our communities flooded with illegal drugs that were smuggled across an unsecure border. And we don’t deserve to have our loved ones ripped away by those same drugs,” Drummond said.
“Secretary Mayorkas is the architect of that destruction the American people are watching. They know that our border was secure just a few years ago,” Knudsen also told panel members.
“The conclusion is clear. Secretary Mayorkas has violated his oath. I urge this body to impeach.”
Just 3 million migrants were encountered by CBP under former President Donald Trump’s administration between fiscal years 2017 and 2020.
The House of Representatives last impeached a cabinet official under President Ulysses S. Grant, when Secretary of War William Belknap confessed to receiving kickback payments from military suppliers in March 1876.
Belknap resigned hours before the House voted through five articles of impeachment against him, but the secretary was later acquitted by the Senate.
Far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) introduced the impeachment resolution against Mayorkas in November — but it was blocked by House Democrats and eight GOP members, who voted to refer it to the Homeland Security Committee.
Committee Democrats have described the House Republican effort to impeach Mayorkas as a political stunt, with Ranking Member Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) saying Green had promised to impeach the secretary well before even starting an investigation into his implementation of immigration policies.
During last week’s hearing, University of Missouri School of Law professor Frank Bowman testified that the Homeland Security secretary’s actions did not reach the constitutional threshold of “high crimes and misdemeanors” required for impeachment.
