The case for ousting Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas will be tested this week as the House votes on Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s article of impeachment.
It’s unclear how much support the Georgia Republican has within her party, much less among Democrats. Some Republicans have indicated they want the House to complete a full impeachment inquiry before holding on a floor vote.
Others say it’s time to show Mr. Mayorkas the door.
“Many times, I’ve extended an olive branch to the Biden administration on border security solutions, but I have lost faith in their ability to do their job, enforce the rule of law, and protect the American homeland. For that reason, I fully support Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s resolution,” said Rep. Tony Gonzales, a Texas Republican representing a district with a longer border than any other member of Congress.
Ms. Greene’s resolution charges Mr. Mayorkas with one count: failing to carry out the laws entrusted to him.
She filed the article as a “privileged” resolution, which means the House must take it up in some fashion within two legislative days. The House is slated to be in session from Monday through Thursday.
Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, supports impeachment but isn’t sold on Ms. Greene’s approach.
“Being the person that she is, she’s trying to leapfrog what is arguably a process that should follow the committee order,” he said.
Impeachment usually follows an official inquiry. Republicans have yet to take such a step but have been holding hearings and conducting what could best be considered inquiry-lite.
The House Homeland Security Committee has produced several reports detailing Mr. Mayorkas’ “dereliction of duty,” complete with a list of times Republicans say he has misled Congress and flouted written laws.
Mr. Stein said Republican leaders must quickly convert those reports into an inquiry.
“Frankly, we’re a little surprised that it’s taking this long, given that we’re hemorrhaging people at the border and it’s creating a crisis for our national security,” he said.
“If you appointed a guy like this as secretary of defense, Hawaii would now be under Chinese control. What Mayorkas is doing is not a game. It’s a threat to national security,” Mr. Stein said.
Mark Morgan, a former head of Customs and Border Protection, said the case against Mr. Mayorkas is clear.
“From Day One, Secretary Mayorkas has abdicated his oath of office, abused his authority, repeatedly lied to the American people and Congress, refused to enforce the law, and actively participated in the unjustified vilification of his own workforce,” he said. “More Americans, as well as migrants, have suffered unimaginable tragedies and died as a direct result of this man’s America last ideology. Impeachment is long overdue.”
Immigrant rights advocates said Ms. Greene’s impeachment resolution is weak and perilous.
“To me, she’s putting the cart before the horse, and the horse is lame and the cart has a broken wheel anyway,” said Douglas Rivlin, senior communications director at America’s Voice.
He said Republicans are wrong to say the border is open. He said more money has been spent on immigration enforcement during Mr. Biden’s three years than President Trump’s full term.
“Anybody who’s saying the border is open doesn’t really understand the border; they just understand Republican talking points,” he said.
Most worrying, Mr. Rivlin said, is the rhetoric. Ms. Greene cited an “invasion” at the border.
Mr. Rivlin said such language has become common among Republicans and has shown up in the writings of the men convicted of hate-crime mass shootings in Pittsburgh; Buffalo, New York; and El Paso, Texas.
“The notion that these gunmen had in their head and their manifestos, that there’s an invasion and they had to stop it violently. And that, I think, is a very disturbing aspect of the Republican rhetoric on this issue,” he said.
Ms. Greene’s resolution accuses Mr. Mayorkas of “willful admittance” of unauthorized migrants and drugs, “allowing the invasion of approximately 10,000,000 illegals,” including 400,000 unaccompanied alien children, and overseeing a record amount of fentanyl smuggled across the border.
She said Mr. Mayorkas flouted laws requiring unauthorized migrants to be detained while arguing against their deportations and used his “parole” powers to “unlawfully” allow migrants to enter without legal visas.
“Alejandro Nicholas Mayorkas, in his inability to enforce the law, has engaged in a pattern of conduct that is incompatible with his duties as a civil officer of the United States,” Ms. Greene’s impeachment resolution says.
The number of illegal border crossings comes from calculations that agents and officers have encountered 8 million unauthorized migrants since January 2021 and an estimate that 1.8 million “gotaways” have evaded apprehension.
The fentanyl and illegal immigrant children numbers are Homeland Security’s figures.
Mr. Mayorkas has indeed overseen the largest catch-and-release of illegal immigrants in history and record low deportations, meaning an unknown but massive number of them are still in the U.S.
The newcomers have overwhelmed communities, and the department has little hope of removing them.
Mr. Mayorkas said previous administrations have also been forced into catch-and-release practices and the only difference now is the magnitude of the influx.
The secretary has flexed his parole powers far beyond what any other secretary has done.
The Congressional Budget Office has calculated that Mr. Mayorkas used parole to admit 1.5 million unauthorized migrants from October 2021 through April 2023. The rate of parole has only increased since then.
The legality of the parole is before the courts, though congressional Republicans say they do not doubt that Mr. Mayorkas has stretched the law beyond the breaking point.
The Homeland Security Department said Republicans are griping about policy differences, not about the sorts of high crimes or misdemeanors that the Constitution requires for impeachment.
“While the House majority has wasted months trying to score points with baseless attacks, Secretary Mayorkas has been doing his job and working to keep Americans safe,” department spokeswoman Mia Ehrenberg said.
“Instead of continuing their reckless impeachment charades and attacks on law enforcement, Congress should work with us to keep our country safe, build on the progress DHS is making, and deliver desperately needed reforms for our broken immigration system that only legislation can fix,” she said.
Mr. Stein said a single issue might be chalked up to policy differences but the long list of failures means Mr. Mayorkas has given up on enforcing the law. That, he said, deserves impeachment.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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