Twenty House Republicans on Tuesday called for the impeachment and removal of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in the subsequent Congress for his failure to stop the immigration crisis on the southern border.
Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), who introduced articles of impeachment against President Biden’s DHS chief last 12 months, led the delegation of lawmakers at a press conference on Tuesday, making the legal case for the way Mayorkas “has committed high crimes and misdemeanors” worthy of impeachment.
“Secretary Mayorkas has released multiple million illegal aliens into the country,” Biggs said. “Most of those released illegal aliens won’t ever be heard from again.”
The Arizona Republican, who has said he’ll challenge Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) for the speaker’s gavel in the subsequent Congress, argued that Mayorkas has “failed to keep up operational control of the border as required under the law,” “can have lied to Congress” when he testified that the situation on the border was under control, and has not detained illegal immigrants as required by law.
“The law is evident, illegal aliens shall be detained,” Biggs said.
Several other House Republicans stepped as much as the rostrum on Tuesday to rail against Mayorkas’s handling of the border crisis.
“He knows what to do, yet he’s literally refusing to do it – purposefully,” said Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas).
The border state Republican added that Mayorkas is “purposefully endangering the American people and migrants who seek to come back here.”
“You bet this can be a high crime and misdemeanor,“ Roy added.
Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) argued that it’s time for House Republicans to “act” and never “just discuss what is occurring” on the southern border, and that impeaching Mayorkas “is the suitable place to begin.”
“Secretary Mayorkas has refused to handle this crisis. But we won’t. He commonly lies to the American people, claiming that the southern border is closed. I’ve been there. It’s wide open,” Boebert said on the press conference.
“Within the private sector, if you happen to don’t do your job, you get canned. So why is Mayorkas still our DHS Secretary when there have been 230,678 illegal encounters at our southern border in October alone?” Rep. Barry Moore (R-Ala) tweeted on Tuesday.
To ensure that Mayorkas to be impeached, the House would want to pass a resolution making the case for the crimes and misconduct committed by the DHS chief by an easy majority vote. The Senate would then hear the impeachment trial and two-thirds would want to vote to convict for Mayorkas to be faraway from office, which is very unlikely to occur within the Democrat-controlled upper chamber.
Mayorkas traveled to the border city of El Paso, Texas, on Tuesday, where tons of of migrants have reportedly been released and left to sleep on the streets, to “meet with the CBP workforce, review operations, and meet with local officials and organizations,” based on DHS.
