Articles of impeachment were filed against Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas by a Texas Republican on Tuesday, months after GOP leaders said they would make an investigation into U.S. border security a priority.
Rep. Pat Fallon (R-Texas) on Tuesday introduced House Resolution 8, which would impeach Mayorkas for “high crimes and misdemeanors” and was referred to the House Judiciary Committee. The text of the bill is currently not available.
Last year, then-House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), recently elected as House speaker, repeatedly called to investigate and impeach Mayorkas while calling on him to resign. In November, McCarthy said that if Mayorkas does not resign, Republicans will probe “every order, every action, and every failure to determine whether we can begin impeachment inquiries.”
After Fallon and other House members were sworn in, the Texas lawmaker vowed to file impeachment articles against Mayorkas, whose agency oversees U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection. He again accused the Biden administration of undermining “law enforcement activities at our southern border” and Mayorkas of perjuring himself before Congress during previous testimonies.
But amid the threats, Mayorkas appeared unfazed in a recent interview with ABC News. When asked, Mayorkas said he has not planned to step down from his position following Republicans’ vows to impeach him.
“I’ve got a lot of work to do, and we’re going to do it,” Mayorkas said on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday, saying he would join Biden during a visit to the U.S.-Mexico border. “We are dealing within a broken immigration system that Congress has failed to repair for decades,” he added. “And there is unanimity with respect to that reality.”
According to Fox News, Fallon’s first article of impeachment alleges that Mayorkas failed to execute the “Secure the Fence Act of 2006” that requires the Homeland Security secretary to “maintain operational control over the entire international land and maritime borders of the United States.” The second impeachment article alleges that Mayorkas “willfully provided perjurious, false, and misleading testimony to Congress” during testimony before Congress on Nov. 15 and April 26 of last year.
“The 511-page report by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Office of Personal Responsibility found ‘no evidence that [Border Patrol agents] involved in this incident struck, intentionally or otherwise, any migrant with their reins,’” Fallon said. “Secretary Mayorkas slandered his own Border Patrol agents and TXDPS Troopers involved in this incident, contributing to a further decrease in already-low morale among agents.”
What Comes Next
Fallon’s resolution will not move until further action from House Republican leaders, although the GOP has said that the Biden administration has dismantled a number of Trump-era immigration rules, leading to a massive surge in people illegally crossing the border over the past two years. The White House has said that increased illegal immigration is primarily due to economic and security conditions in a number of countries within the Western Hemisphere and that the United States should instead address those conditions.
Due to the slim majority Republicans currently have in the House, the GOP would need virtually every Republican lawmaker to vote in unison. An impeachment trial in the Senate would very likely fail as it requires a two-thirds majority to convict an official.
Some Republicans, meanwhile, have previously said they aren’t willing to go after Mayorkas without an investigation.
“You’ve got to build a case. You need the facts, evidence before you indict,” Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) told ABC News in November. “Has he been derelict in his responsibilities? I think so.”
Michael Chertoff, a George W. Bush-era Homeland Security secretary who was tapped for a Biden administration “disinformation board” in 2022, said a Republican-led impeachment inquiry targeting Mayorkas would be a stunt.
“It would basically be putting form over substance to go through a big performance on impeachment that’s never going anywhere, rather than actually working with the administration to solve the problem,” Chertoff said last year during an interview with CBS.
The Epoch Times has contacted the Department of Homeland Security for comment.
A spokesperson for Homeland Security told news outlets in November, in response to threats to impeach Mayorkas, that “members of Congress can do better than point the finger at someone else” and “should come to the table and work on solutions for our broken system and outdated laws, which have not been overhauled in over 40 years.”
From The Epoch Times