House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said Tuesday the House of Representatives will convene impeachment procedures against Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas when the new 118th Congress convenes Jan. 3, 2023.
McCarthy, who is expected to succeed Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) as Speaker of the House, told reporters in El Paso at the U.S. border with Mexico after meeting with U.S. Border Patrol officials that Mayorkas should “resign.”
“He cannot and must not remain in that position. If he does not resign, House Republicans will investigate every order, every action and every failure to determine whether we should begin an impeachment inquiry.”
McCarthy continued, saying “If Secretary Mayorkas was in charge of a private company, he would have been fired by now. The American public deserves more and expects better. Enough is enough.”
Before his declaration of the House Republicans’ plans regarding Mayorkas, McCarthy said 300 Americans die every day due to illegal drugs coming into the country through the Southern border.
“That’s the equivalent of an airliner crashing each and every day in America. But he does nothing. If an airliner crashed three days in a row, the entire nation would say we have a real challenge, we have a crisis, we have a disaster, we have to do something about it. But he continues to lie to the American people,” McCarthy said.
“We have lost operational control of our Southern border, empowering drug cartels and human traffickers. They have fired shots at our National Guard. They point AK-47s at helicopters. They have burned and hung and raped the women and caught them on fire and again, Secretary Mayorkas thinks the border is secure,” McCarthy continued.
McCarthy previously had said he plans on hearings on the crisis at the border to examine the policies of President Joe Biden, as Mayorkas has implemented them, that have allowed an estimated more than two million illegal immigrants to cross the U.S. border with Mexico in only two years.
Mayorkas has insisted in congressional testimony and public comments that the U.S. border with Mexico is “secure” and not a national security problem, despite the fact hundreds of immigrants are seen crossing the border by the hour.
Among the worst consequences of Biden’s border policies has been the explosion in the amount of fentanyl and other deadly drugs like cocaine and heroin coming into the country. The precursor chemicals for many of those drugs are obtained by cartels from sources in China.
McCarthy noted that three U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents have committed suicide in recent days.
Reacting to McCarthy’s statement promising hearings on the crisis at the Southern border, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre accused him and House Republicans of having no plan for solving the immigration problem.
“I’ve heard that Kevin McCarthy is at the border. And the question that we have for Kevin McCarthy, who’s soon to be Speaker McCarthy, what is his plan? What is he doing to help the situation that we’re seeing,” Jean-Pierre told members of the White House press corps.
“What is his plan, he goes down there, and he does a political stunt, like many Republicans do that we have seen them do. But he actually is not putting forth a plan,” she said.
McCarthy was accompanied to the border by six House colleagues, including Rep. Brian Babin (R-Texas), Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas), Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.), Rep. Kat Kammack (R-Fla.), Rep. Tony Gonzalez (R-Fla.), and Rep. August Pfluger (R-Texas).
“Secretary Mayorkas has failed to faithfully uphold his oath and has instead presided over a reckless abandonment of border security and immigration enforcement, at the expense of the Constitution and the security of the United States.
“Secretary Mayorkas has violated, and continues to violate, this requirement by failing to maintain operational control of the border and releasing hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens into the interior of the United States.
“Secretary Mayorkas has willfully refused to maintain operational control of the border as required by the Secure Fence Act of 2006. His actions have directly led to an increase in illegal aliens and illegal narcotics, including deadly fentanyl, entering the United States.”
“Despite the heroic efforts by the men and women of Border Patrol, who operate with very little support from Washington, D.C., you have failed to achieve any semblance of operational control of the southern border. We have grave concerns about what this failure means for both national security and the health and safety of American citizens. These failures cannot go unaddressed, and your actions cannot be unaccounted for. The American people deserve better.”
