House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green (R-Tenn.) said he’s not concerned about the political spectacle of impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, saying his committee is duty-bound to advance the impeachment effort no matter how the rest of Congress rules on the matter.
Members of Mr. Green’s committee weighed in on Mr. Mayorkas’s tenure as the top U.S. homeland security official on Tuesday ahead of a vote that will determine if and how he may be impeached for an alleged failure to secure the U.S. border.
Asked whether he’s concerned that Americans will view an impeachment effort against Mr. Mayorkas as a primarily political effort during an election year, Mr. Green told NTD News he’s acting the same way he would if he were considering impeaching a cabinet member of a Republican administration.
“Look, this is our duty,” Mr. Green said. “If [Mr. Mayorkas] was Republican, I’d be doing this.”
Mr. Green said the case for impeaching Mr. Mayorkas is based on a plain reading of the law regarding the homeland security secretary’s duties to secure the U.S. border. The Republican committee chair argued that U.S. federal laws state that the Department of Homeland Security “shall detain” aliens arriving at the U.S. border, but that Mr. Mayorkas is “doing just the opposite.”
“You can’t have someone just totally disregard the separate but equal branch of government. You can’t do that,” Mr. Green said. “So again, if it was a Republican, I’d do the same thing. And whether it passes or succeeds in the Senate or not, I have a duty to do what’s right. So I’ll do it anyway, even if we don’t pass it on my side of the aisle.”
Rep. Michael Guest (R-Miss.), another member on the Homeland Security Committee, also insisted that Republicans do not relish the prospect of impeaching Mr. Mayorkas but said there are no other remedies to address Mr. Mayorkas’s handling of U.S. border security before the 2024 election.
“This is not something Republicans wanted to do. But the Secretary has refused to enforce the law,” Mr. Guest told NTD News. “And he continues to be dishonest, not only with the American people, but with Congress. He has lied repeatedly when he said that the border is secure and that we have operational control. And so he’s refused to enforce the border, he’s lied to Congress. This is the only remedy Republicans have left to do anything between now and the election cycle, to try to secure the border.”
Lawmakers Debate Causes of Record-Breaking Border Crossings
Rep. August Pfluger (R-Texas), a member of the Homeland Security Committee, argued that congressional Democrats can no longer dispute that there is a crisis at the U.S. borders.
“Not a single Democrat has disagreed with the fact that we have a crisis right now,” the Texas Republican told NTD News on Tuesday.
Last week, U.S. Customs and Border Protection released its border enforcement statistics for the month of December, revealing the agency had encountered some 371,036 people attempting to illegally enter the United States that month including 302,034 people attempting to illegally cross the U.S. southern border; a single month record.
When asked what would explain the record-breaking numbers at the U.S. border, if not a failure to enforce the law, Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) argued that enforcement metrics are also rising.
“We also have record high numbers of fentanyl seizures, record higher numbers of fentanyl arrests, record high numbers of removals and deportations,” Mr. Goldman told NTD News. “The numbers across the board are going up. But the data says that the same number of immigrants who are coming in are being removed as was in the Trump administration.”
Mr. Goldman further argued that several factors could be contributing to the record number of border encounters, besides lax enforcement attracting illegal border crossers. He listed climate change, violence, and growing instances of government dysfunction and collapse around the world as a factor motivating people to attempt to enter the United States in such large numbers.
“The other reason, of course, is that even though more than 50 percent of asylum applicants ultimately are denied asylum. We have such a backlog in our system, that started long before President Biden came in, that people can come here and stay here for many years so that it is still worth it for them to come,” the New York Democrat said.
Mr. Goldman argued that the Biden administration has offered a solution to the backlog of asylum cases, in the form of a supplemental spending request that allows for the hiring of additional personnel to process immigration cases. Republicans in Congress have instead argued for the administration to resume border wall construction and return to policies that require pending asylum applicants to remain in Mexico rather than be released into the United States.
“Republicans refused to pass legislation because they’re focused on the November election and supporting Donald Trump more than they are on addressing solutions,” Mr. Goldman said. “And they tried to undermine the policy changes that the Biden administration has implemented to address the situation the border, and then they accuse the secretary of failing to address the situation at the border.”
Does Impeachment Apply?
Constitutional law scholar Jonathan Turley called into question the argument for impeaching Mr. Mayorkas during a Monday interview with Fox News. While Mr. Turley’s legal analysis in recent years has often aligned with Republicans and conservatives, he said he did not see a valid basis for impeaching Mr. Mayorkas so far.
Mr. Turley insisted impeachment ought to be employed narrowly and insisted the framers of the U.S. Constitution rejected the use of impeachment as a tool to punish “maladministration.”
“The fact is, impeachment is not for being a bad cabinet member or even being a bad person,” Mr. Turley told Fox News. “It is a very narrow standard.”
While Mr. Turley argued impeachment should not arise from a disagreement over how the laws are being enforced, impeachment proponents have argued that the wording of the Constitution and U.S. law articulates a clear responsibility for Mr. Mayorkas to enforce the laws.
The proposed article of impeachment against Mr. Mayorkas reiterates that Article II of the U.S. Constitution requires that members of the executive branch ensure that laws passed by Congress “are faithfully executed.” The impeachment articles state that the Secure Fence Act also specifically requires the Secretary of Homeland Security to “maintain operational control over the entire international land and maritime borders of the United States.” The impeachment articles allege Mr. Mayorkas has willfully allowed illegal border crossings, thereby violating the Secure Fence Act.
The impeachment articles further assert that the Constitution requires Mr. Mayorkas to enforce the Immigration and Nationality Act, which “requires Homeland Security to detain inadmissible aliens arriving in the United States or illegal aliens presently in the United States.” The impeachment articles state that Mr. Mayorkas has instead employed “catch and release” policies that allow for illegal border crossers to be released into the country.
“[Republicans] have to show either bribery, treason, or high crimes and misdemeanors,” Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-Md.) told NTD News on Tuesday. “They’re not even trying to make an argument for any of those.”
Mr. Ivey pointed to the fact that Mr. Turley, whom he called “the Republican darling,” had rejected their case for impeachment.
“We have all of these witnesses, on the one hand,” Mr. Ivey said. “They have none.”
Matt O’Brien, a former immigration attorney and judge now serving as the director of investigations at the Immigration Reform Law Institute, argued that the Republican impeachment articles are “right on the money.” Mr. O’Brien told NTD News that U.S. federal law “binds” Mr. Mayorkas to “observe the conditions that Congress set forth for admitting people into the country,” but the Biden administration’s policies don’t match up with those conditions set by Congress.