House Republicans are building a slam-dunk case for impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. They’re on a multi-track approach in their inquiry, using committee hearings on the crisis at the southern border to build their case. Three House committees — Oversight, Homeland Security, and Judiciary — will soon hold hearings about the influx of migrants and security concerns at the border.
But Mayorkas has already convicted himself out of his own mouth.
“The facts are that Secretary Mayorkas has repeatedly told the public that the border is secure and that the border is not open,” Gov. Greg Abbott said in an interview with Fox News Digital.
“He testified under oath to those two statements in front of the United States Congress, and despite what he is saying, the reality is, under Secretary Mayorkas, we have the largest number of people coming across the border illegally than ever in the history of the United States of America,” the governor said.
Just because the border patrol turns back about one-third of all illegals trying to enter the United States doesn’t mean the border is “secure.” And while claiming the border isn’t open may be a technicality, the fact is more than 2 million people crossed the “closed” border last year.
Related: Articles of Impeachment Filed Against DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas
You can parse anything Mayorkas has ever said about the border but asking a few border mayors during an impeachment trial whether the border is secure and if the border isn’t open would lead to a quick conviction — if Democrats were being honest about the situation. But Democrats are rightly terrified of the political fallout from their incompetent management of the southern border and are going to pretend — just as Joe Biden pretends — that everything is going well and it’s going to get better.
Helluva job, Alejandro.
As Biden earlier this month made his first visit to the border as president, Abbott was waiting for him on the tarmac at the airport in El Paso, Texas. The governor handed the president a letter in which he charged, “Your visit to our southern border with Mexico today is $20 billion too little and two years too late.”
Abbott, who also argued in his letter that the “chaos” at the border was the president’s fault for failing to enforce federal immigration laws, has spent more than $4 billion to secure Texas’ 1,254 miles of border with Mexico.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams has had enough of the White House pretending there isn’t a problem on the border. He’s asking the president to appoint a “czar” to deal with the overwhelming number of illegals crossing the border.
That’s a great idea — except the job has already been filled. Vice President Kamala Harris is supposed to be the “border czar.” The only problem is that she declared the border was “secure” last September and never said another word about it.
In truth, Majorkas is not an independent actor. He’s beholden to the president and the lies he spouts are not his own. Indeed, no one can make claims about a “secure border” and think that anyone believes them.
“If anybody is a prime candidate for impeachment in this town, it’s Mayorkas,” Rep. James Comer, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, told CNN.
But not every Republican in the House agrees that Majorkas should be impeached. It’s not that he isn’t an incompetent boob; it’s that the constitutional standard of “high crimes and misdemeanors” may not have been met.
“Clearly, the management of the Southern border has been incompetent,” Rep. Dusty Johnson, a Republican of South Dakota, told CNN. “That is not the threshold in the Constitution for impeachment — it’s high crimes and misdemeanors. … I would want to think about the legal standard the Constitution has set out — and whether or not that’s been met.”
It’s apparently not the job of Congress to fire incompetent secretaries. But if Biden won’t do it, who will?
The drive to impeach Mayorkas won’t start for several months as first, the Republicans have to build a case against him. Then there have to be impeachment hearings. And then a trial. The glacial pace of the proceedings will ensure that Mayorkas will have the opportunity to leave office on his own before the impeachment drama plays out.
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