House Republicans Escalate Investigation Against Homeland Secretary Mayorkas

Ellen M. Gilmer
·4 min read
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(Bloomberg Government) -- House Republicans are escalating their bid to investigate and oust Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, an effort that will dominate 2024 election messaging but likely cause GOP divisions along the way.

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Homeland Security Chairman Mark Green (R-Tenn.) on Wednesday kicked off a long-promised investigation into Mayorkas and his alleged “dereliction of duty” on securing the US-Mexico border, which has seen record migrant encounters during much of President Joe Biden’s term.

The renewed targeting of Mayorkas threatens to deepen divisions among House Republicans as the conference is already split into factions that at times have stalled legislative business.

Green and other members of the Homeland Security Committee on Wednesday unveiled a 55-page accounting of their complaints about Mayorkas and Biden’s border policies ahead of a hearing whose title declares the secretary’s alleged failures a “closed case.”

The panel will conduct a five-phase investigation and pass along its findings to the House Judiciary Committee, which would lead any future impeachment proceedings, Green said at a press conference. The chairman stressed that he isn’t using the word impeachment yet and is focused on investigating “the failures of this secretary.”

Other members of the Homeland Security Committee, however, have explicitly backed impeachment and sponsored their own resolutions. (H. Res. 470,H. Res. 411)

GOP Reservations

As with other matters, the party is far from unified on the desire to impeach Mayorkas for his handling of immigration and border policies.

“I haven’t seen any high crimes or misdemeanors by the secretary,” Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said, referring to the legal standard for impeachment. Issa, a member of the Judiciary Committee, added that he believes the effort will divide the party.

Rep. María Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.), who is pushing sweeping bipartisan immigration legislation, cautioned during a Washington Post Live event Tuesday that targeting Mayorkas would do nothing to resolve challenges at the border.

Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.), another Republican considered a moderate on immigration matters, remained circumspect and noted that the bar for impeachment is high.

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“Disagreeing with someone and their work is different than if they actually committed a high crime or misdemeanor,” he said. “If that’s the case, it would have to be proven.”

Targeting Mayorkas

House Republicans have targeted Mayorkas since they took the majority in January, following through on pledges many members made on the campaign trail in 2022. They kicked off the session with a series of border visits, hearings, and document requests aiming to pin the blame for migrant arrivals and fentanyl trafficking squarely on the secretary.

Specifically, they’ve taken aim at Mayorkas’s past insistence that the US has “operational control” of the southern border. The term is defined under a 2006 law to mean preventing all unlawful crossings, a standard no administration has met. Mayorkas in April said he was using a less technical definition to mean DHS was “maximizing the resources that we have to deliver the most effective results.”

Republicans have also complained about the Biden administration’s use of an app called CBP One that allows migrants to request appointments at ports of entry to make their case to cross into the US, and the administration’s reliance on immigration parole status as a legal pathway for eligible immigrants. Critics say the policies exceed DHS’s authority and obfuscate the true number of migrants entering the country.

DHS has pushed back on the claims, defending the secretary’s leadership and the administration’s combination of carrot-and-stick policies to deter illegal immigration while providing options to select immigrants.

House Republicans Expand Probe Into Biden Immigration Policies

“Instead of pointing fingers and pursuing baseless attacks, Congress should work with the Department and pass comprehensive legislation to fix our broken immigration system, which has not been updated in decades,” spokesperson Mia Ehrenberg said in a statement.

House Democrats have also lined up to support Mayorkas, accusing their colleagues across the aisle of targeting the secretary to score political points and using policy differences to try to justify impeachment.

“It’s unfortunate,” said Rep. Bennie Thompson (Miss.), the Homeland Security Committee’s top Democrat. “In my estimation, he’s done a good job. But, you know, they’re in charge of the House, and if that’s the direction they want to take, so be it.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Ellen M. Gilmer in Washington at egilmer@bloombergindustry.com

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Michaela Ross at mross@bgov.com; Robin Meszoly at rmeszoly@bgov.com

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