Republicans are focused on the secretary's handling of the southern border, where drug cartels are using the border with Mexico to traffic people and ship deadly fentanyl into the U.S. Over the past year, more migrants have sought asylum. Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., a Trump friend and prospective vice presidential nominee, termed it a “invasion.”
Republicans said the Biden administration and Mayorkas either ended Trump's migration policy or instituted their own that encouraged international migrants to enter the U.S. illegally over the southern border.
Speaker Mike Johnson attacked the Senate measure, saying Biden and Mayorkas had “created a catastrophe” on the border. The GOP leader claimed the president is now blaming Congress for not updating immigration rules. Republicans also accused Mayorkas of lying to Congress regarding border security and screening Afghans flown to the U.S. following troop pullout.
Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, the House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman, labeled Mayorkas the “architect” of border issues and said “it’s high time” for impeachment. “He gets what he deserves.” In January, the House impeachment hearings against Mayorkas advanced as the Republicans' probe into Biden's financial connections with his son Hunter Biden languished. Democrats say Mayorkas is working within his departmental authority and that his critiques do not warrant impeachment.
New York House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries called the proceedings a “political stunt” ordered by Trump and Trump supporter Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., who advanced the resolution to the voting. Mayorkas never testified during the hasty impeachment hearings because he and the committee couldn't agree on a date, but he relied on his past as a youngster transported to the U.S. by his parents fleeing Cuba and his career prosecuting criminals.
He wrote, “Your false accusations do not rattle me and do not divert me” from public duty. Republican committee head Green called Mayorkas's letter a “11th-hour response” that was “inadequate and unbecoming of a Cabinet secretary.”
Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., argued that the impeachment proceedings were “all about trying to get Donald Trump reelected” due to Trump's comments echoing Hitler that immigrants are “poisoning the blood” of the U.S. and his extreme border militarization proposals. With their thin majority and Democrats anticipated to vote against impeachment, House Republicans may not have enough support following a committee vote.
Eight House Republicans voted to dismiss Greene's impeachment proposal last year instead of sending it to the committee, but many have since expressed interest. Jonathan Turley and Alan Dershowitz, leading constitutional law scholars, said Mayorkas' remarks are not impeachable.
The Senate would try Mayorkas if the House impeaches him. The Senate acquitted Defense Secretary William Belknap of government contract kickbacks in 1876 after the House impeached him.
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