Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is one step closer to impeachment.
All 18 Republicans on the House Homeland Security Committee voted Thursday to recommend to the House that Mayorkas be impeached.
The vote came on the tail end of a hearing titled “Voices for the Victims: The Heartbreaking Reality of the Mayorkas Border Crisis,” during which parents testified about losing their children from the fentanyl flowing across the Southwest border and crimes perpetrated by those coming here illegally on Mayorkas’s watch.
WATCH — Angel Mom Rips into Mayorkas: He is Partially Responsible for My Daughter’s Fentanyl Poisoning
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Committee Republicans said in a statement:
After our nearly year-long investigation and subsequent impeachment proceedings, and having exhausted all other options to hold him accountable, it is unmistakably clear to all of us—and to the American people—that Congress must exercise its constitutional duty and impeach Secretary Mayorkas. The Secretary has consistently, willfully, and systemically refused to follow the laws passed by Congress, abused his authority, and breached the trust of Congress and the American people on numerous occasions. The result of his failure to fulfill his oath of office has been a border crisis that is unprecedented in American history—a crisis that has cost the lives of thousands of Secretary Mayorkas’s fellow Americans.
The hearing was the second held by the committee as part of a formal inquiry into the impeachment of Mayorkas. The inquiry was launched after a year of investigation and multiple hearings on the border crisis created by the embattled Mayorkas.
The committee said its investigations “conclusively establish” that Mayorkas bears responsibility for the crisis:
His willful and systemic refusal to follow the laws passed by Congress has incentivized unprecedented mass illegal immigration. He has abused his power by directing his department to implement policies contrary to federal statute and abandoning viable enforcement initiatives, and he has breached the public trust by willfully misleading Congress and the American people on numerous occasions about the consequences of his decisions and the operational realities on the border.
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The committee Republicans, led by Chairman Mark Green (R-TN), accused Mayorkas of refusing to cooperate with their investigations as well as turning down opportunities to testify.
Democrats pushed back, formally requesting an opportunity to hold a hearing with their own slate of witnesses—a highly uncommon occurrence.
The White House responded to Thursday’s vote by suggesting that Mayorkas has more important things to prioritize than addressing a Congress threatening to make him the first cabinet secretary to be impeached since the Ulysses S. Grant administration.
The House could take up Mayorkas’s impeachment as soon as the week of January 22.
Bradley Jaye is a Capitol Hill Correspondent for Breitbart News. Follow him on X/Twitter at @BradleyAJaye.
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