Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is in a can’t-win situation.
House Republicans could hold a floor vote as soon as Tuesday to impeach the Biden administration official for his failure to remedy the situation at the southern border over the past three years.
But no Cabinet official has spent more time over the past 3 1/2 months working with Democratic and Republican senators behind closed doors to broker a border security deal in the supplemental funding bill.
Mayorkas, a Cuban immigrant, has called since early 2021 for Congress to take legislative action to change immigration and border laws to address the enormous flow of immigrants illegally crossing the border each month.
All the while, House Republicans have chided Mayorkas for not doing more himself to stop the flow.
In November 2022, then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) called for Mayorkas to resign or face impeachment. More than a year later, the House GOP has moved on that call with two articles filed against Mayorkas.
Last week, the House Homeland Security Committee approved both articles and forwarded them to the House Rules Committee for review Monday afternoon before a floor vote, possibly as soon as Tuesday. If successful, it would mark the first House impeachment of a Cabinet official in nearly 150 years.
House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green (R-TN), who led the charge that Mayorkas’s handling of the border amounts to high crimes and misdemeanors, made clear Sunday he will not support the legislation that Mayorkas says will offer relief. “I will vehemently oppose any agreement that legitimizes or normalizes any level of illegal immigration,” Green said in a statement.
Democrats have decried Republicans’ impeachment effort as ironic given that Mayorkas has been involved day after day with the backdoor Senate negotiations for $118 billion in funding to help Ukraine and Israel.
About $20 billion in the finalized bill will go toward U.S. border security efforts. The funding request prompted blowback from Republicans and a monthslong battle for policy reforms that would curtail the situation at the border.
Mayorkas was seen frequently on Capitol Hill over the past several months, attempting to broker negotiations and advocate for the government’s interests between Democrats and Republicans.
Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY), a member of the House Homeland Security Committee, said Mayorkas has given Republicans exactly what they wanted, not using the pen to go around Congress but trying to work with Congress, only to have Republicans turn a blind eye.
“The cynicism and hypocrisy is startling,” Goldman said during an interview with MSNBC host Jen Psaki. “The House Republicans are trying to impeach Secretary Mayorkas for failing to address the problems at the border while he is negotiating with the Senate, legislation that is necessary because executive action is insufficient in this situation. He is negotiating legislation that would address the border.”
Mayorkas has largely remained quiet in the face of House Republicans attacks, but he issued a 10-part response to the Senate’s release of the border deal Sunday evening, calling it “tough” but “fair” and urging lawmakers to pass the plan.
“The bipartisan agreement in the Senate is tough, fair, and takes meaningful steps to address the challenges our country faces after decades of Congressional inaction,” Mayorkas wrote on X.
Mayorkas said the deal would allow the DHS to “remove more quickly those who do not establish a legal basis to remain in the United States, reducing the time from years to months.” It would also automatically provide asylum-seekers with documents to work legally in the U.S. rather than after six months, as is current practice.
While House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said the Senate deal is “dead on arrival” in the House, the deal’s broker, Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) has called for Republicans to consider what he and others have labored over since last October.
“The border security bill will put a huge number of new enforcement tools in the hands of a future administration and push the current Administration to finally stop the illegal flow,” Lankford said in a statement. “The bill provides funding to build the wall, increase technology at the border, and add more detention beds, more agents, and more deportation flights. The border security bill ends the abuse of parole on our southwest border that has waived in over a million people. It dramatically changes our ambiguous asylum laws by conducting fast screenings at a higher standard of evidence, limited appeals, and fast deportation.”
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Mayorkas said implementing the new rules, if passed, would “take time.” Anything but confirmation that a deal will have an immediate impact on the flow of illegal immigrants at the border is likely a nonstarter for House Republicans and more reason to see Mayorkas as the problem rather than part of the solution.
“While the proposed legislation does not fix everything in our immigration system, these reforms are essential for making our border more secure, orderly, fair, and humane,” Mayorkas said. “I call on Congress to pass this bipartisan legislation, give the DHS workforce the tools and resources we need, and provide solutions that increase our border security.”