Embattled Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas raced to distance himself from the southern border crisis as furious House Republicans began the new year with calls for justice in the form of impeachment.
The unprecedented illegal immigration crisis that has gone unchecked by the Biden administration for three years hit a tipping point over the past month as numbers climbed to new highs and the House GOP pivoted from flirting with impeachment to finally moving forward.
HOUSE REPUBLICANS MOVING SWIFTLY TO START MAYORKAS IMPEACHMENT ON JAN. 10
Moments after the House Homeland Security Committee announced Wednesday that it would begin proceedings to remove Mayorkas from his Cabinet post come Jan. 10, Mayorkas defended himself on television.
“We are seeing the greatest number of displaced people not only at our southern border, not only in the Western Hemisphere but across the globe,” Mayorkas told MSNBC’s Morning Joe hosts Wednesday. “The challenge of displaced people is a subject that comes up in every single conversation. We have the effects of climate change, poverty, increasing level of authoritarianism, the very many challenges that are at the root cause of the displacement of people around the world.”
The Department of Homeland Security leader has long avoided the term “crisis” to describe the situation despite Republicans’ insistence that the Biden administration use stronger language to show that it recognizes the seriousness of the situation, particularly after Trump administration officials and career federal law enforcement officers at the border had warned Biden’s transition team against its planned policy implementations.
Acting U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Mark Morgan told the Washington Examiner in December 2020 that “if the current [Trump] policies in place are revoked … the 2,300 [immigrant encounters] per day will become a full-blown crisis overnight as we stand by and watch the numbers go even higher.”
Just last month on Dec. 18, authorities encountered 14,509 immigrants at the southern border, the highest number seen in a single day and beyond all other records that the Biden administration has set over the past three years.
Mayorkas visited Mexico in late December alongside Secretary of State Antony Blinken to meet with Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador about the border, though any concrete agreements or plans to stem the flow as a result of the meeting have not been publicly shared.
“[Mexico has] a migration challenge themselves, as does Colombia, as does Ecuador, as does Costa Rica, as does Panama, as does Guatemala,” Mayorkas told MSNBC. “This is a regional problem that is challenging our entire hemisphere and, as I referenced earlier, so many countries around the world, but we spoke with Mexico last week about what we think they can do to assist us in enforcing their borders so that we do not see the level of migration, irregular migration, at our border.”
Mayorkas pointed to hundreds of millions of dollars that the federal government has made available to large U.S. cities nationwide to cover some costs of housing and sheltering immigrants who are released at the border and allowed to remain in the country through court proceedings that can be scheduled for many years into the future.
“We have sought much-needed funding for our efforts to address the situation at the border, more Border Patrol agents, more asylum officers, more immigration judges, more investment in technology to battle the scourge of fentanyl,” Mayorkas added.
DHS agency U.S. Customs and Border Protection is in the process of deploying more employees to hard-hit border regions and standing up additional tents as overflow facilities. It is creating joint processing centers so that children do not have to sit in Border Patrol custody for days before being transferred to childcare facilities administered by the Department of Health and Human Services.
DHS agency Federal Emergency Management Agency has also sent in employees to assist CBP with children in custody, and DHS has deployed hundreds of staff members as volunteers at the border.
Given DHS’s response and the global displacement since the coronavirus pandemic, not all Republicans are on board with stripping Mayorkas from his position on the basis that he committed high crimes and misdemeanors.
Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-TX), the chairman of the House Budget Committee, said in an interview in September that even if the House managed to impeach Mayorkas, the move would do little to affect the Biden administration’s influence. So he would prefer to go after the one in charge.
“[Mayorkas] hasn’t done his job, and he’s under the direction of our commander in chief,” Arrington told the Chad Hasty Show on KFYO Newstalk last month. “I mean, I would argue it’s really Biden at the end of the day. Biden’s calling the shots, Biden is the one that’s not enforcing the laws, Biden’s the one that’s dismantled all of the effective programs and policies … that President Trump set up that were working.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
But with the election coming and the border getting worse, House Republicans have turned their focus to trying to remove Mayorkas from office.
Mayorkas said he was working with the Senate to come up with border measures that Democrats and Republicans would agree to include in the supplemental funding bill to assist Ukraine and Israel, and he vowed to “certainly” cooperate with House lawmakers as they move forward with impeachment.
