But Mayorkas represents disastrous White House policy, so impeaching him won’t change things.
The cost to American taxpayers of chaos at the border rises directly and indirectly by about $200 billion each year since Joe Biden and the far left mandated the “Open Door” policy.
Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rep. Mark Green began impeachment proceedings against Mayorkas at a peculiar political moment: On one side of the Capitol, a group of senators from both parties have been engaged in almost daily negotiations with Mayorkas over a historic border security package. On the other hand, the legislative body wants to remove him from office.
Opening the hearing, Green, R-Tenn., said “there is no reasonable alternative to impeachment.”
More than 10,000 migrants arrive at the border every day
Border crossings are at record levels: they have exceeded 10,000 and 11,000 per day.
An impeachment of a Cabinet secretary is rare. It has only happened once in the nation’s history: when the House of Representatives impeached Secretary of Defense William Belknap in 1876 for bribery in government contracts.
“You can’t impeach a Cabinet secretary because you don’t like a president’s policies,” said Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, the committee’s top Democrat.
Thompson should say the same to his colleagues who seek to convict and imprison a former president for opposing his successful policies, something unprecedented in the country’s history. And they have been trying to do so since Donald Trump assumed the Presidency in January 2017. Throughout his mandate they persecuted him, harassed him and discredited him until they led him to two impeachment trials under the big lie orchestrated with the FBI about Russia’s alleged interference in the elections. 2016, a fallacy that uncovered an almost four-year investigation by special prosecutor John Durhan.
With the GOP impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden — into his son Hunter Biden’s business dealings — moving furiously as lawmakers work to unearth information, Republicans sharpen their focus on border crossings and the investigation into Mayorkas after chaos of national security that, far from diminishing, is becoming more acute.
House Speaker Mike Johnson approved the process and called Mayorkas the “main perpetrator” of the border problems. “Congress will now have to take the next step and hold him accountable,” he said at a news conference.
Johnson spoke with Biden on Wednesday and urged him to use his executive authority to secure the southern border, White House spokesman Raj Shah said.
“Crimes and serious misdemeanors”
Green’s committee conducted a multi-part investigation into Mayorkas and the Department of Homeland Security, but sped up the process when Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene pushed the impeachment resolution after Johnson won the presidency in March. Lower House after the dismissal of Kevin McCarthy.
It remains to be seen whether the House investigation convinces all lawmakers that Mayorkas’ conduct rises to the level of “high crimes and misdemeanors” that the Constitution specifies for impeachment.
The vast majority of Republicans prefer a return to Donald Trump-era immigration policies and blame Biden for halting construction of the border wall and ending COVID-19 pandemic-era restrictions that prevented many immigrants enter the United States. Both policies had been defended by the former president, who is comfortably in the lead for the Republican Party’s 2024 presidential nomination.
“The evidence documented throughout this report will demonstrate that Mayorkas has failed, and continues to fail, his solemn duty to secure the nation’s borders,” the House panel’s initial report says.
Green, the committee chairman, has denounced the conspiracy known as the “great replacement theory” when he recently argued that Mayorkas’ “intent” to expel fewer immigrants than Trump and let in millions was to “fundamentally change the population of the United States.” United, and empower the Democratic Party in perpetuity.”
On Monday night, Green said what is happening on both sides of the Capitol are “different” things, adding that negotiations between Mayorkas and senators “will continue.
The Department of Homeland Security released a memo saying Mayorkas and senators from both parties are working hard to find “real solutions.”
However, after three years in which Republicans have grown tired of calling for border control and truly effective measures, neither Democrats nor Biden have been interested in doing absolutely anything to fix immigration laws and restore security. on the border in the face of so much chaos.
They ask Biden for responsibility
Sen. James Lankford, the Republican chief negotiator on the border package, who has been in almost daily negotiations involving Mayorkas, said he understands his colleagues’ frustrations. But he encouraged them to focus, as he has, on legislation to force Biden to act.
“Mayorkas accelerates and delivers on President Biden’s policies; that’s what a secretary is going to do,” Lankford told reporters. “So even if you change the immigration chief the policies will be exactly the same.”
Privately on Wednesday, Lankford briefed Republican lawmakers in the House and Senate about the border talks, which suffered a setback this week.
Congressmen struggled with certain differences, particularly over parole programs to allow immigrants seeking asylum into the United States while they await court proceedings. Reaching a border agreement is key to a broader financing package for Ukraine of more than $60 billion, which is stalled in Congress.
Conservatives are preparing their effort to remove him from office. The House Homeland Security Committee plans to hold hearings throughout January with the aim of politically prosecuting Mayorkas.
During Wednesday’s nearly five-hour session, Republicans denounced Mayorkas’ performance, saying he had failed to do his job of detaining immigrants who had no right to be in the country and allowing others to remain while they awaited legal proceedings.
“We’re going to impeach him,” said Rep. Clay Higgins, R-Louisiana.
The panel heard testimony from attorneys general about the flow of fentanyl into their states, often from drug cartels, and from a law professor about the grounds for impeachment.
If the House of Representatives agrees to impeach Mayorkas, the case would go to trial in the Senate, where a supermajority is needed to convict him. In the Grant era, Defense Secretary Belknap was acquitted in the Senate.
“Does your immigration handling meet the threshold of ‘high crimes and misdemeanors’? That is a question we will have to answer,” said Senator John Thune, the second-ranking Republican in the Senate.
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Source: With information from AFP and AP
