Republicans put 11 DHS employees, including Mayorkas, on notice
Ryan King
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Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee are calling nearly a dozen Department of Homeland Security officials to give “voluntary compliance” to testimony requests as they gear up to scrutinize the border crisis and other hot-button topics.
Ranking member Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), who is poised to lead the Judiciary Committee in the new Congress, named DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and 10 other officials in a letter that called for “unfettered cooperation” and threatened to deploy a “compulsory process” if they fail to cooperate.
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“Over the past twenty-one months, we have made several requests for information and documents concerning the operations and actions of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its components,” Jordan wrote in the letter. “To date, you have ignored these requests, or you have failed to respond sufficiently.”
https://twitter.com/JudiciaryGOP/status/1593586581427847168
House Republicans have long sought to turn up the heat on DHS for the border crisis, the now seemingly defunct “Disinformation Governance Board,” and more. Jordan emphasized that Republicans had iterated its information requests multiple times last month, but voiced dissatisfaction with the response.
“Please be aware that if our requests remain outstanding at the beginning of the 118th Congress, the Committee may be forced to resort to compulsory process to obtain the material we require,” he said.
Last month, Republicans on the committee demanded the Biden administration to preserve documents pertaining to the border. Some members of the GOP caucus are keen on impeaching Mayorkas from his post amid the border crisis, CNN reported. The last fiscal year saw a record-smashing 2.3 million encounters at the border.
In addition to Mayorkas, others who were name-dropped included officials at Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection, the DHS Office of the General Counsel, U.S Citizenship and Immigration Services, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
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Ahead of their takeover of the lower chamber, Republicans had teased a plethora of investigations into the Biden administration. This includes a House Oversight Committee inquiry into Hunter Biden’s affairs.