The House Homeland Security Committee convened on Tuesday in a hearing to discuss the ongoing border crisis and House Republicans' efforts to advance two articles of impeachment against Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas over a perceived failure to enforce U.S. immigration policies at the border, violating publics trust, and “willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law," per the Washington Post.
“Secretary Mayorkas has put his political preferences above following the law,” Homeland Security Committee Chair Mark Green, R-Tenn., said in his opening remarks Tuesday.
Though Mayorkas was not present at the hearing, he sent a letter to Green that highlighted his dedication to the public and refuted Republican claims that he has dodged their calls for security efforts. According to the Washington Post, Green described the letter as “inadequate and unbecoming of a Cabinet secretary."
"We have provided Congress and your Committee hours of testimony, thousands of documents, hundreds of briefings, and much more information that demonstrates quite clearly how we are enforcing the law,” Mayorkas wrote, per WaPo.
“I assure you that your false accusations do not rattle me and do not divert me from the law enforcement and broader public service to which I remain devoted,” he added.
Democrats have vehemently objected to the impeachment proceedings, arguing that they are baseless and politically motivated.
“Policy differences are not impeachable,” Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said in his opening statement during Tuesday's hearing.
Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., during the hearing underscored former President Donald Trump's erratic and ethically unsound border proposals, while also noting how GOP lawmakers have begun opposing bipartisan border-related legislation — which Senate Republicans and Democrats have attempted to negotiate for weeks — only after Trump recently spoke out against it.
“I want to remind the public that Donald Trump and House Republicans also have their own ideas for the border,” Garcia said, using a graphic to illustrate his points. “So let’s review the majority’s border ideas that they’ve actually presented. Here they are. Donald Trump actually has said that he wants to build alligator moats along the border. That’s one of his incredible ideas," the lawmaker observed, referring to reports from 2019.
"Another idea that Donald Trump has promoted, is he actually wants to electrify the border fence and maybe even put some spikes on the border," Garcia added. "That’s another Donald Trump and MAGA majority border idea. Another idea, which I’m not sure how well it would go, is he wants to actually bomb northern Mexico with missiles. That’s another Trump idea. And finally, I think one of the ones that I think is the most grotesque is suggestions that instead, we should maybe just shoot migrants in the legs as they cross the border."
"So once again, the Donald Trump and MAGA plan is alligator moats, bombing northern Mexico, shooting migrants in the legs, and electrifying the fence, and putting spikes on them," Garcia continued. "That is the Donald Trump border plan. And so again, we are here today with these horrific ideas being presented constantly by the former president. This is all about trying to get Donald Trump reelected. Donald Trump himself is saying he wants no solutions this year out of the Congress. And Secretary Mayorkas and President Biden continue to offer solutions every day and are ready to actually talk about real immigration and border solutions in this country."
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Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., also criticized Republicans on Tuesday for trying to blacklist Mayorkas, arguing that "he’s adhered to the law in every single way that he’s been required to do."
“What you are upset about is that Secretary Mayorkas rescinded prior executive orders that were working," Goldman added, referencing Mayorkas's reviving of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for El Salvador, Nicaragua, Nepal, and Honduras, which Trump terminated. "And you have a right to be upset about that. And you have a right to talk about that. And you have a right to express your dissatisfaction in any way you choose.”
"But you do not have a right to demean this institution, to bastardize the impeachment clause of the Constitution, to belittle the standard of constitutional impeachment to such a degree, that you can’t even produce a legal memo in support of your articles of impeachment that do not exist in history, and do not exist in the law," Goldman continued.
"And if, in fact, as you allege here, there were false statements made to Congress or obstruction of Congress, those are crimes. You could’ve charged him with those, but you didn’t want to because you knew you couldn’t actually prove them. You just want to make the allegations and concoct some crazy breach of public trust which does not exist."
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Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Tex., defended Mayorkas, saying that he has never been equipped with adequate resources to detain all undocumented migrants.
“I can’t for the life of me see why my colleagues do not understand that you are dealing clearly with the issue of a policy decision and a very wise secretary that is trying to do his job by protecting us in the narrow way that he’s allowed to do so,” Jackson Lee said, per the Washington Post.
At one point during the hearing, Rep. Tony Gonzalez, R-Tex., implied that Democrats' efforts to back Mayorkas were futile.
“One of the most difficult things about Congress is it’s filled with nothing but lawyers, and they’ll talk all day about this, that or the other, which is … frustrating to many Americans,” Gonzales said. “This is what’s going to happen. The House of Representatives is going to impeach Secretary Mayorkas, and there is absolutely nothing anyone can do to stop it. That’s going to happen.”
On Wednesday morning, the House GOP voted 18-15 to advance the articles of impeachment against Mayorkas, with the intention of bringing the proceedings to the House floor next week. If House Republicans succeed, it would mark the first impeachment of a Cabinet member in nearly 150 years, at noted by WaPo. However, the Post added that "even if the full House impeaches Mayorkas, he is unlikely to be convicted in a trial in the Democratic-led Senate."
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