WASHINGTON — Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives held a second impeachment hearing Thursday for Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, even as Mayorkas works to reach an agreement with a group of senators on changes to immigration law.
Republicans on the Homeland Security Committee argued that Mayorkas had failed to uphold his oath of office because he was enforcing the Biden administration’s border policies, and that alone should constitute an insurmountable crime.
Two GOP witnesses who testified, both mothers, said the administration’s immigration policies played a role in their daughters’ deaths.
“These crimes were completely preventable, but Secretary Mayorkas’ policies allow these criminals to enter our country and destroy the lives of this family. This is despicable,” said GOP Chairman Mark Green of Tennessee. Green did not indicate how many more hearings there will be before Republicans move to adopt an impeachment resolution.
One mother who testified, Tammy Nobles of Maryland, she lost her daughter in 2022. A non-citizen minor has been charged with the sexual assault and murder of Kayla Hamilton.
Another witness, Josephine Dunn from Arizona, lost her daughter Ashley Dunn in 2021 as a result of a fentanyl overdose.
The top Democrat on the committee, Republican Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, argued that the hearing was not a true impeachment inquiry. “This is a predetermined, planned partisan political stunt,” Thompson said.
Ian Sams, special assistant to the president and White House oversight spokesman, said in a statement that Republicans were pressing ahead with impeachment to appease the far right.
“Beyond the shameless partisanship of attempting to scapegoat a Cabinet secretary who is actively working to find a solution to a problem that Congressional Republicans have refused to actually solve for years, this stunt by House Republicans is just the latest example of their flagrant disregard for the Constitution and our democratic system of government,” Sams said.
Mayorka negotiates immigration deal
The hearing came as a group of bipartisan senators and Mayorkas worked to reach an agreement on immigration policy to pass a multibillion-dollar global security package that would aid Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and U.S. border security.
The subject of these talks is the Biden administration’s exploit of parole authority to grant short-lived protection to some citizens and some migrants on the southern border.
As impeachment proceedings continued in the House on Thursday, the Congressional Latino and Progressive Caucuses played out organized a press conference disapproval of changes to asylum law and restrictions on parole eligibility.
At the beginning of the hearing, Democrats argued that Republicans did not follow proper procedures.
Thompson and Democratic Rep. Dan Goldman of New York said that if the committee proceeds with the impeachment inquiry, under those rules, Democrats should hold a separate hearing where they can bring their own witnesses, rather than just one witness.
The witness Democrats questioned was constitutional law scholar Deborah Pearlstein, director of Princeton’s program in law and public policy, and the Charles and Marie Robertson Visiting Professors of Law and Public Affairs.
Green disagreed.
“There are interpretation differences on this issue,” he said. “Our parliamentarian says you have the right to witnesses, not to a special hearing.”
Mayors absent
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Republicans argued that Mayorkas had violated his oath of office due to the enhance in migrants seeking asylum.
Since the start of fiscal year 2024 on October 1, there have been more than 483,000 encounters with foreigners at the southwest land border, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data.
GOP lawmakers also criticized Mayorkas for not attending the hearing. According to DHS, Mayorkas agreed to appear before Congress and was not present at Thursday’s hearing because he was meeting with Mexican government officials to discuss border enforcement issues.
Texas Republican Michael McCaul, who is also chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, asked GOP witnesses Nobles and Dunn whether they believed Mayorkas had violated his oath of office.
They both agreed and said they held Mayorka personally responsible for their daughters’ deaths.
Rep. Clay Higgins promised that Mayorkas would be impeached.
“God is my witness, we will impeach this man in this committee,” the Louisiana Republican said.
The Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives is leading GOP lawmakers to the border for a tough response to Biden on immigration
Florida GOP Rep. Carlos Gimenez questioned Pearlstein on whether Mayorkas could be impeached for “dereliction of duty.”
Pearlstein stated in her testimony that only twice in U.S. history had officials been charged with “dereliction of duty” – in 1804 and 1873.
“In both cases, the allegations were that the officials were either chronically intoxicated, mentally impaired, or both,” she added. “In low, none of them involved a case where Congress was simply dissatisfied with the official’s performance in office; “both cases involved officials who were physically or mentally unable to perform their duties while on the base.”
Pearlstein stated that “no comparable evidence of (the) incapacity of Secretary Mayorkas has been presented here.”
Gimenez asked whether it would be an unenforceable crime for someone to “fail to uphold their oath to protect the homeland and do so in a manner that constitutes a dereliction of duty.”
Pearlstein said it’s generally conceivable, but “I don’t know if there’s evidence of negligence” in the Mayorkas’ case.
She added that “dereliction of duty” is also different from “breach of oath.”
“Impeachment only applies to a specific category of crimes,” she said. “It only applies to a specific category of crimes – it must be a crime along the lines of high treason or bribery, that is, a crime against the system, and not an ordinary criminal offense, something that disrupts the structure of the Constitution or the system of government.”
Democrats see lack of evidence
Maryland Democratic Rep. Glenn Ivey said the hearing took him away from actually working on border policy.
“If Republicans have not presented evidence of actual impeachment, violation of standards and the Constitution, we should not pursue this case,” he said.
Rhode Island Democratic Rep. Seth Magaziner made similar comments and argued that Republicans have an opportunity to bring up border security in follow-up talks.
“Where were House Republicans during these conversations?” he said.
These negotiations are only between the Senate and the White House, and Speaker Mike Johnson met with President Joe Biden and those negotiators on Wednesday. After the meeting, Johnson said any additional package should include border security.
Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who was the first presented the resolution impeaching Mayorkas for “high crimes and misdemeanors,” argued that House Republicans proposed policy changes with the passage of the bill HR 2 already in May last year.
The bill expired the moment it reached the Senate and includes the reimplementation of several tough Trump-era immigration policies.
“They want more money to help more migrants come into the country,” Greene said of Democrats’ border security funding request. “It’s unfortunate that this is about migrants, it should be about Americans.”
She added that if Mayorkas follows Biden’s policies, “maybe we should bring articles of impeachment against the president.”
Greene has already introduced articles of impeachment against Biden. She asked Pearlstein whether Mayorkas or Biden should be impeached.
Pearlstein said the Constitution is not intended to impeach officials over political differences.
“We’re not talking about the constitution,” Greene said.
Nevada Democratic Republican Dina Titus said she found it compelling that Greene “actually had the nerve to say, ‘We’re not talking about the Constitution.'”
“She was the one who submitted the resolution we are considering, so if we’re not talking about the Constitution, what are we talking about?” she said. “We are wasting our breath… It’s a political stunt.”
Mothers bear witness
Laurel Lee of Florida asked both mothers what Congress could do to prevent the tragedies they experienced.
Nobles said she wants migrants to be vetted and given background checks. Report of the Office of Inspector General found that while U.S. Customs and Border Protection was following protocol for “screening procedures designed to prevent migrants with serious criminal histories from entering the country,” agents could improve the process for maintaining records of non-citizens.
Nobles said the foreign minor accused of her daughter’s murder had a previous conviction in El Salvador.
“They failed Kayla by not checking the background of her murderer,” she said. “I know Americans commit crimes against other Americans, but why do we have to take garbage from other countries? Why do we need them?”
Dunn said she needs military personnel on the U.S.-Mexico border.
“We need our troops on the border to stop drugs and prevent people from entering,” Dunn said.
Oklahoma GOP Rep. Josh Brecheen asked Nobles whether DHS had notified her that the minor charged with her daughter’s murder had ties to the MS-13 gang.
“It took local detectives to determine it was MS-13,” she said, explaining that it came out through DNA testing.
