The Home Homeland Safety Committee on Tuesday authorized, alongside social gathering traces, two articles of impeachment towards Homeland Safety Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas — teeing up a ground vote as early as subsequent week to question the embattled Biden official.
The committee voted alongside social gathering traces to approve the 2 impeachment articles, which accuse Mayorkas of getting ”repeatedly violated legal guidelines enacted by Congress relating to immigration and border safety” and of getting ”made false statements to Congress” that the border is safe and closed and that DHS is in operational management of the border. The articles will now go to the Home the place they are going to be voted on the Home ground.
The vote got here after a prolonged, and at occasions, fiery listening to through which Republicans outlined their case for why Mayorkas needs to be faraway from workplace for allegedly mishandling the disaster on the southern border and Democrats accused Republicans of debasing the impeachment course of for political functions.
MAYORKAS SLAMS ‘BASELESS’ GOP ALLEGATIONS AHEAD OF KEY IMPEACHMENT VOTE
”As we speak is a grave day,” Chairman Mark Inexperienced stated. ”Now we have not approached at the present time or this course of flippantly. Secretary Mayorkas’s actions have pressured our hand. We can not enable this border disaster to proceed.”
U.S. Division of Homeland Safety Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas holds a press convention at a U.S. Border Patrol station on January 08, 2024 in Eagle Go, Texas. (John Moore/Getty Photos)
Republicans spent the listening to emphasizing their case towards Mayorkas, pointing to report excessive border crossings, with the report for month-to-month crossings having been damaged in December, and mass releases of migrants into the inside together with narrowed inside enforcement. They accuse Mayorkas of not following immigration regulation, which they are saying calls for the detention of unlawful immigrants, and of failing to safe the border.
”My colleagues throughout the aisle, appear to say that it is acceptable that we have had 10 million unlawful crossings in three years and we have had pushing 300,000 Individuals useless from opioid overdose. We’re dropping our nation down there. And the person chargeable for executing that coverage is Alejandro Mayorkas,” Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La., stated.
Democrats pushed again, first making an attempt to adjourn the markup after which ripping into Republicans for the proceedings, accusing them of working a ”sham” impeachment and of attempting to question Mayorkas based mostly purely on political motivations and coverage disputes, and of interfering with Mayorkas’ efforts to unravel the continuing disaster.
”The intense MAGA Republicans who’re working the Home of Representatives are deeply unserious individuals. They do not need progress. They do not need options,” Rating Member Bennie Thompson stated. ”They need a political situation. And most of all, they need to please their disgraced former president.”
Chairman Mark Inexperienced, R-Tenn., middle, joined by Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., the rating member, leads the Home Homeland Safety Committee transfer to question Secretary of Homeland Safety Alejandro Mayorkas over the disaster on the U.S.-Mexico border, on the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2024. ((AP Photograph/J. Scott Applewhite))
”You wouldn’t have a proper to demean this establishment, to bastardize the impeachment clause of the Structure, to belittle the usual of constitutional impeachment to such a level which you could’t even produce a authorized memo in help of your articles of impeachment that don’t exist in historical past and don’t exist within the regulation,” Rep. Dan Goldman, D-NY., stated.
The listening to comes after a bitter months-long argument over the method. Inexperienced’s committee started investigating Mayorkas final 12 months and Home impeachment articles have been referred to the committee in November. The committee held two impeachment hearings earlier this month. Mayorkas didn’t testify, regardless of expressing willingness to testify — a topic of finger-pointing between the 2 sides over who was accountable. However on Tuesday he despatched a prolonged letter slamming the proceedings and defending his report in workplace.
”I guarantee you that your false accusations don’t rattle me and don’t divert me from the regulation enforcement and broader public service mission to which I’ve devoted most of my profession and to which I stay devoted,” Mayorkas stated.
The Biden administration has repeatedly stated the disaster on the border has not been brought on by coverage, however is as an alternative a Hemisphere-wide disaster mixed with a ”damaged” immigration system that wants reform and complete immigration reform. In his letter, Mayorkas declared that ”issues with our damaged and outdated immigration system should not new.”
MIGRANT CRISIS BROKE NEW RECORD IN DECEMBER WITH 302K ENCOUNTERS, OFFICIALS CONFIRM
”Our immigration legal guidelines final obtained an overhaul in 1996. Our immigration legal guidelines have been merely not constructed for twenty first century migration patterns,” Mayorkas stated.
He pointed to statistical data together with half one million removals since Could, and each day removals almost double what they have been in comparison with from 2014-2019. He additionally says that the apprehension charge has been 78%, the identical because the prior administration, and there was a big improve in elimination flights throughout the Western Hemisphere.
He additionally factors to elevated Border Patrol hiring, an anti-smuggling marketing campaign and an intensified anti-fentanyl effort that has seen extra seizures of the lethal drug.
”As an alternative you declare that we’ve got did not implement our immigration legal guidelines. That’s false,” he stated.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
He additionally pushed again on the criticism his division has confronted over an alleged lack of responsiveness to oversight queries from Congress, claiming as an alternative that he has been attentive to Congress with testimony, witnesses and paperwork.
”The allegations are baseless and inaccurate,” he stated.
If the Home votes to question Mayorkas, then the case will go to the Senate for a trial.
Fox Information’ Tyler Olson, Elizabeth Elkind and Chad Pergram contributed to this report.