Homeland Security Sec. Alejandro Mayorkas lashed out at House Republicans trying to impeach him, saying he would not be swayed by ‘politically motivated accusations and personal attacks you have made against me.’
Mayorkas wrote a scathing seven-page letter to House Homeland Security Chairman Mark Green, R-Tenn., Tuesday morning, just hours before the GOP is set to move forward impeachment articles against him.
‘I assure you that your false accusations do not rattle me and do not divert me from the law enforcement and broader public service mission to which I have devoted most of my career and to which I remain devoted,’ he said.
The Homeland Security secretary insisted he’s done the best he can with the tools available to him – and any further restrictions will take an act of Congress.
Mayorkas has been involved in bipartisan Senate talks on a national security aid and border package that House Republicans have largely rejected.
The House is set to advance two articles of impeachment against Mayorkas – one accusing him of willfully subverting immigration laws through catch-and-release and another accusing him of obstructing and lying to Congress.
Chairman Mark Green is leading a full committee markup to impeach Sec. Mayorkas
Republicans hold sign showing the Democrats who voted to refer Mayorkas impeachment to the committee
Mayorkas lashed out at House Republicans trying to impeach him, saying he would not be swayed by ‘politically motivated accusations and personal attacks you have made against me’
Green fired back in a statement to DailyMail.com, calling Mayorkas’ ’11th-hour response’ this morning ‘inadequate and unbecoming of a Cabinet secretary.’
He maintained that the GOP investigation has ‘established’ that Mayorkas ‘willfully and systemically refused to comply with the laws of the United States and breached the public trust. ‘
‘A letter at 4:48am on the morning of our markup, repeating the same false claims and doubling down on his commitment to his continued lawless conduct, indicates the contempt with which he views Congress, the American people, and the Constitution he swore an oath to defend,’ continued Green.
In December 2020, former President Trump’s last full month in office, there were 92,000 border encounters. Mayorkas suggested that took extreme policies from the Trump team.
‘I think it is unconscionable to separate children from their parents as a tool of deterrence,’ he said, referring to a part of the Trump administration’s zero tolerance border policy in 2018.
‘I believe that law enforcement at the border can be tough and humane. It is our responsibility to the American people to work through our differences and try to reach solutions together.’
Republicans cite Mayorkas’ ‘willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law’ as hundreds of migrants continue to flood into the U.S. every day.
They contend Mayorkas is guilty of ‘high crimes and misdemeanors’ that amount to a ‘refusal to comply with the law’ on immigration and a ‘breach of the public trust.’
The impeachment resolution stated: ‘Alejandro N. Mayorkas willfully and systemically refused to comply with the immigration laws, failed to control the border to the detriment of national security, compromised public safety, and violated the rule of law and separation of powers in the Constitution, to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.
Since taking control of the House in 2023, Republicans have pushed to impeach Mayorkas – but momentum faded when they announced the impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden.
The effort came back to the forefront when Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., forced a vote to impeach Mayorkas on the House floor and the House referred the articles back to the Homeland Security Committee.
Meanwhile immigration and border security has launched to the forefront of electoral politics as record numbers of migrants attempt to cross the U.S.-Mexico border.
The GOP push also comes at a curious time for Mayorkas.
Even as the House is taking steps to try remove him from office, Mayorkas has been engaged in arduous negotiations with senators seeking to reach a bipartisan deal on border policy. He has won praise from senators for his engagement in the process.
Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has said the House will move forward as soon as possible with a vote.
Passage requires only a House majority. The Senate would hold a trial, and a two-thirds vote is required for conviction, an exceedingly unlikely outcome in the Democratic-run Senate.
Democrats say Republicans have held a sham of an impeachment process against Mayorkas and lack the constitutional grounds to impeach the secretary.
Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., suggested the GOP’s efforts opens the door to making impeachment political.
‘The Republicans are going to open the door to impeach a secretary because they don’t like how that secretary is doing his job, well, what happens if there’s another child separation policy?’ he said, referring to Trump’s ‘zero tolerance’ policy.
They also say Republicans are part of the problems at the border, with Republicans attacking Mayorkas even as they have failed to give his department the tools it needs to manage the situation.
‘They dont want to fix the problem; they want to campaign on it. That´s why they have undermined efforts to achieve bipartisan solutions and ignored the facts, legal scholars and experts, and even the Constitution itself in their quest to baselessly impeach Secretary Mayorkas,’ the department said in a statement Sunday.
Mayorkas wrote a scathing seven-page letter to House Homeland Security Chairman Mark Green, R-Tenn., Tuesday morning, just hours before the GOP is set to move forward impeachment articles against him
Rep. Mark Green (R-TN) chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee
The two articles mark the culmination of a roughly yearlong examination by Republicans of the secretary’s handling of the border and what they describe as a crisis of the administration’s own making.
Republicans contend that the administration and Mayorkas specifically either got rid of policies in place under Trump that had controlled migration or enacted policies of their own that encouraged migrants from around the world to come to the U.S. illegally via the southern border.
They cite growing numbers of migrants who have overwhelmed the capacity of Customs and Border Protection authorities to care and process them.
Homeland Security Chair Mark Green had invited Mayorkas to testify before the committee and gave a date, but Mayorkas had a scheduling conflict that day and he says the committee did not offer another date.
Green then asked Mayorkas to submit written testimony instead. Green said Mayorkas’ letter did not pass muster.
‘Secretary Mayorkas’ 11th-hour response to the Committee is inadequate and unbecoming of a Cabinet secretary. Our investigation has established that Secretary Mayorkas has willfully and systemically refused to comply with the laws of the United States and breached the public trust. The Committee would have preferred he accept our multiple invitations extended to him since last August to appear before us in person.’
‘A letter at 4:48am on the morning of our markup, repeating the same false claims and doubling down on his commitment to his continued lawless conduct, indicates the contempt with which he views Congress, the American people, and the Constitution he swore an oath to defend.’