WASHINGTON — Moving forward with multiple impeachment plans, Republicans in the House of Representatives set their sights Wednesday on Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who they want to prove is “abandoning his duty” in dealing with the surge of migrants at the border between the US and Mexico.
Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rep. Mark Green launched Mayorkas’ impeachment proceedings at a particularly political moment: On one side of the Capitol, a bipartisan group of senators are locked in almost daily negotiations with Mayorkas over a landmark border security package. . On the other hand, the House wants to dismiss him from office.
Opening the hearing, Green, R-Tenn, said there is “no reasonable alternative but to pursue the option of impeachment.”
The House of Representatives panel has been circling Mayorkas all year, at times expected to pursue impeachment proceedings against him as border crossings reached record levels, exceeding 10,000 on some days. The numbers have dropped recently.
But the removal of a cabinet secretary is rare; it has happened only once before in the nation’s history, when the House of Representatives impeached Secretary of Defense William Belknap in 1876 for kickbacks in government contracts. Going after an official over a policy dispute, in this case over Mayorkas’ claim that he is not enforcing immigration laws, is unprecedented.
“You can’t impeach a Cabinet secretary because you don’t like a president’s policies,” said the top Democrat on the committee, Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi.
Thompson said the evidence at the hearings will show Mayorkas is actually doing his job. He denounced the political dysfunction of the Republican majority in the House of Representatives. “This is not a legitimate impeachment,” he said.
As the GOP’s impeachment investigation into President Joe Biden over his son Hunter Biden’s business dealings drags on as lawmakers try to gather information, Republicans are sharpening their focus on the border crossings and the investigation into Mayorkas.
Speaker Mike Johnson, who leads a majority that favors oversight and investigation over pursuing bipartisan legislation to resolve the concerns, nodded to the proceedings 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 also spoke with Biden on Wednesday and “strongly encouraged” the president to use his executive powers to secure the southern border, the speaker’s spokesman Raj Shah said.
Green’s committee conducted a multi-part investigation into Mayorkas and the department, but kicked the process into high gear when far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene pushed the impeachment resolution after Johnson won the gavel following the ouster of Rep. Kevin McCarthy as speaker .
It remains to be seen whether the House of Representatives investigation will convince lawmakers that Mayorkas’ conduct rises to the level of the “high crimes and misdemeanors” the Constitution specifies for impeachment.
Many Republicans favor a return to Donald Trump-era immigration policies, and they blame Biden for taking actions to halt border wall construction and end COVID-19 restrictions era that prevented many migrants from entering the US. Both policies were championed by the former president, who is now the Republican Party’s frontrunner for the party’s 2024 presidential nomination.
“The evidence documented in this report will demonstrate that Mayorkas has and continues to violate his solemn duty to secure the nation’s borders,” the panel’s initial report said.
Green, the committee chairman, repeated a baseless racist conspiracy idea known as the “great replacement theory” when he recently argued that Mayorkas’ “intent” by removing fewer migrants than Trump did was to “reduce the population of the United States.” States, and I believe this will forever strengthen the Democratic Party.”
Green said late Monday that what’s happening on the two sides of the Capitol is “separate,” adding that negotiations between Mayorkas and senators “will continue and hopefully come to an agreement.”
The Department of Homeland Security issued a memo noting that Mayorkas and bipartisan senators are working hard to find “real solutions” to fix broken immigration laws, while the House majority is wasting time on “baseless and pointless political attacks ‘ by trying to depose him.
Sen. James Lankford, the Republican Party’s lead negotiator for the border package who has been in almost daily negotiations with Mayorkas, said he understands his colleagues’ frustrations. But he encouraged them to focus, just as he has on legislation to force Biden’s hand.
“Mayorkas is tailoring President Biden’s policies — that’s what a secretary will do,” Lankford told reporters. “So you can change secretary, the policy will be exactly the same.”
Lankford privately briefed GOP lawmakers in the House and Senate on Wednesday about the border talks, which suffered a setback this week. Senators grappled with some disagreements, particularly over parole programs to allow immigrants seeking asylum into the U.S. pending legal proceedings. Reaching a border deal is key to a broader financing package for Ukraine, Israel and other national security needs.
Over the course of the talks, Mayorkas and Lankford have grown to trust each other as the Cabinet secretary has tried to advocate for an immigration system that brings “order and humanity,” according to a person familiar with the talks who spoke to The Associated Press. on condition of anonymity.
But the goodwill for Mayorkas has not spread to the House of Representatives, where Republicans are preparing their efforts to remove him from office. The House Homeland Security Committee plans to hold hearings in January with the end goal of impeaching Mayorkas.
During Wednesday’s nearly five-hour session, Republicans hammered Mayorkas’ actions, saying he had failed to do his job by detaining migrants who had no right to be in the country and allowing others to remain pending the procedure.
“We’re going to impeach him,” said Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La.
The panel heard testimony from attorneys general on the flow of fentanyl into their states, often from drug cartels, and from a law professor on the grounds for impeachment.
Democrats said the hearing was designed by Republicans to score political points rather than improve the immigration system. “Impeachment will not make our borders more secure,” said Rep. Delia Ramirez, D-Ill.
As the House of Representatives continues its various impeachment investigations, not all Republicans are enthusiastic about the commitments.
Eight Republicans voted in November to delay the final vote on Mayorkas’ impeachment by sending it to committee. And some Republican senators have found themselves in a political bind as they try to support but also distance themselves from their far-right colleagues.
If the House of Representatives agrees to impeach Mayorkas, the case would go to the Senate, where a supermajority is needed for conviction. During the Grant era, Secretary of Defense Belknap was acquitted in the Senate.
‘Does his handling of this meet the threshold of ‘serious crimes and misdemeanors’? That’s a question we’re going to have to get answered,” said Sen. John Thune, the second-ranking Republican leader in the Senate.
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Associated Press writers Stephen Groves and Farnoush Amiri contributed to this report.