Republicans Warn DHS Secretary Mayorkas He Could Be Impeached

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas arrives for the US Coast Guard (USCG) change of command ceremony at USCG Headquarters in Washington on June 1, 2022. Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

Two top Republicans have warned Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas that he faces possible impeachment proceedings if his department doesn’t quickly implement new border controls.

“Your failure to faithfully enforce this nation’s immigration laws and willful blindness to the very real humanitarian crisis at our southern border amounts to a gross dereliction of duty and a violation of your oath of office,” Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) stated in a letter to the secretary. “This is gross dereliction of duty and, if not corrected swiftly, could provide grounds for impeachment.”

They included figures showing that the number of people crossing into the United States from Mexico has dramatically increased since Mayorkas and President Joe Biden took office about 19 months ago.

“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,” the letter, dated Oct. 4, says.

Data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which is overseen by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), shows there were more than “4.4 million illegal crossings, including over 3.5 million apprehensions by CBP and at least 900,000 gotaways, who evaded apprehension,” they wrote.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) speaks at a press conference at the U.S. Capitol to discuss immigration at the southern border in Washington, D.C., on June 22, 2022. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Graham and Cruz added that the surge of illegal immigration is accompanied by drug trafficking into U.S. communities.

“Drug cartels produce bulk amounts of fentanyl in Mexico, using the Chinese-supplied ingredients, and smuggle the drug across the U.S.–Mexico border,” they wrote. “This amounts to a multibillion-dollar business for transnational criminal organizations, who then launder the money out of the United States and back into China.”

Impeachment

Even if Republicans take control of both the House and Senate, an impeachment conviction requires two-thirds of senators to vote in favor. The House, which has a lower threshold, requires only a simple majority to impeach an official.

For example, then-President Donald Trump was impeached twice in the House, but he wasn’t convicted—and therefore not removed from office—when those articles of impeachment were considered in the Senate. Also, in the late 1990s, President Bill Clinton was impeached in the House but wasn’t convicted in the Senate.

The most recent federal official to be convicted was former Judge G. Thomas Porteous Jr., who was impeached in March 2010 on charges of accepting bribes and making false statements under penalty of perjury. He was found guilty by the Senate in December 2010 and was subsequently removed from office.

Administration Denials

The White House and Mayorkas have repeatedly denied that a crisis exists at the southern border. Recently, Vice President Kamala Harris declared that the United States has “a secure border,” but provided no evidence for the claim.

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris speaks to the media at the naval base in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan, on Sept. 28, 2022. Leah Millis/Pool/AFP via Getty Images

“What we stand by is that we are doing everything that we can to make sure that we follow the process that’s been put forth,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said after Harris’s remark in mid-September. “That’s why we have historic funding to do just that, to make sure that the folks that we encounter at the border be removed or expelled.”

Jean-Pierre then asserted, without providing evidence or details, that the White House is currently trying to “fix a broken system” that was left by the Trump administration. She didn’t make reference to the dramatic increase in the number of illegal immigrants crossing the U.S.–Mexico border since Biden took over.

This week, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott sent more illegal immigrants to the home of Harris in Washington, according to reports. For months, Abbott has been sending busloads of illegal aliens to New York City, Washington, and Chicago.

DHS officials didn’t respond by press time to a request by The Epoch Times for comment about the letter.