Secretary Mayorkas Delivers Remarks at Eagle Pass, Texas Press Conference (January 8, 2024)

Some have accused DHS of not enforcing our nation’s laws. This could not be further from the truth. Having begun my public service career as a federal prosecutor for 12 years, ultimately serving as the United States Attorney, there is nothing I take more seriously than our responsibility to uphold the law, and the men and women of DHS are working around the clock to do so.

[OCS: This appears to be another bald-faced lie. Similar to the lies Mayorkas had told Congress and repeated in a televised interview with ABC’s Martha Raddatz when he stated, “The border is closed, the border is secure.” Both documentary evidence and sworn testimony negates much of what Secretary Mayorkas has told Congress and the media.] 

The individuals who have been returned to their countries of origin certainly know this. After the ending of Title 42 in May, through the end of the fiscal year, DHS removed or returned more noncitizens without a basis to remain in the United States than in any other five-month period in the last ten years. In fact, the majority of all Southwest Border migrant encounters throughout this Administration have been removed, returned, or expelled – the majority of them. We are doing everything we can, within a broken system, to incentivize noncitizens to use lawful pathways, to impose consequences on those who do not, and to reduce irregular migration.

[OCS: More lies. The Biden Administration has funded NGOs to act as the Welcome Wagon for arriving illegal immigrants who have claimed asylum even though they traveled through countries that eliminated any immediate risk from the regimes in their own countries.]

We will continue to do everything we can, and we will continue to enforce the law, but we need Congress to make the legislative changes and provide the funding that our frontline officers so desperately need.

[OCS: President Biden dismantled a working immigration system using Executive Orders and side-stepped Congress. The President has all the power he needs and does not require additional legislation to enforce the current federal immigration laws. Biden can, with the stroke of a pen, restore Trump's sensible immigration policies.

It appears that additional funding would be directed at administrative rather than enforcement activities—providing a faster and easier path for illegal aliens to enter the United States, be processed, provided temporary assistance, and be relocated all through the nation without additional vetting, medical exams, or location tracking.]

What is remarkable is that, through it all, the brave men and women of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and their partners in the Department of Homeland Security, have and will continue to put on their uniforms, don their badges, and work at great risk to themselves in the service of their mission – to keep us and our country safe and secure.

[OCS: There is no mention of the number of Border Patrol agents who have been transferred from enforcement to administrative duties, including chauffeuring illegal aliens to medical appointments or caring for small children.]  <Source: DHS>

Impeaching Mayorkas Achieves Nothing

A policy dispute doesn’t qualify as a high crime and misdemeanor.

WSJ Opinion: Should Secretary Mayorkas Be Impeached?

The Homeland Security Committee on Tuesday began marking up two articles of impeachment against Mr. Mayorkas—one for breach of trust and the other for “willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law.” The articles say these are “high crimes and misdemeanors” that justify removal from office.

The 20-page political indictment certainly is a sorry list of policy failings on Mr. Mayorkas’s watch and their damaging consequences for American cities and states. These include the entry of migrants on the terrorism watch list, and an increase in average encounters at the border from 590,000 in fiscal years 2017-2020—to 1.4 million in 2021, 2.3 million in 2022 and 2.4 million in 2023.

[OCS: These are not “a sorry list of policy failings on Mr. Mayorkas’s watch,” but a knowing, willful violation of the federal immigration laws and a violation of his oath of office to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same.”] 

These are failures of policy and execution, but are they impeachable offenses? That seems doubtful. The first article cites Mr. Mayorkas for refusing to implement a law that requires detention of aliens. It says his policy of “catch and release” is impeachable.

[OCS: Mayorkas’s failure to follow federal immigration law has resulted in material harm to the United States of America, violated our constitutional sovereignty, and adversely impacted the safety and security of the United States by rendering it vulnerable to criminals and terrorists.]

Yet the Supreme Court has not ruled that the Biden policies are illegal. The High Court in 2022 let the Biden Administration end Donald Trump’s Remain in Mexico policy, and last year it ruled 8-1 that states don’t necessarily have standing to challenge the federal government’s enforcement priorities.

[OCS: You do not have to have a legal predicate to impeach; witness the precedent set by the progressive communist democrats when they impeached Donald Trump—twice. The Supreme Court plays no constitutional role in an impeachment proceeding.

Do these people understand that impeachment is not a criminal proceeding, subject to any federal legal requirements, but a political one subject only to the existing rules of Congress? ]

As for catch and release, one problem is the statutory “credible fear” standard for claiming asylum in the U.S. The standard is too low, but it isn’t clear under the law that the Administration can legally deport people claiming asylum before they get a hearing. The U.S. lacks the facilities to hold asylum claimants, so they are released to await their hearing—and that can take years. But the problem is asylum law, as Republicans have long argued.

Article I also claims Mr. Mayorkas has violated the law by expanding humanitarian parole beyond Congress’s intent. That’s probably true, but the law puts no cap on parole numbers. Texas and other states challenged the President’s authority to use parole for large classes of migrants, but the Supreme Court ruled against them.

House Republicans dislike how the Administration is interpreting immigration law. But Congress has failed to reform asylum standards or humanitarian parole, or to otherwise tighten immigration rules. That’s why Senators are now negotiating over language to reform both the asylum standard and parole.

[OCS: Democrats are negotiating with Republicans only to show enough bipartisanship to remove immigration as a GOP election talking point.]

If Congress holds Mr. Mayorkas impeachable for policy failure, what’s the limiting principle? Are his deputies also guilty of “high crimes” for implementing the Biden immigration agenda? Career officials? How many GOP cabinet secretaries will the next Democratic House line up to impeach? Policy disputes are for the voting booth, not impeachment.

All the more so because the main architect of the border-security fiasco isn’t Mr. Mayorkas. It’s his boss, President Biden. “If you want to flee and you are fleeing oppression, you should come,” said Candidate Joe Biden in a 2019 debate. Mr. Mayorkas is following White House orders.

Impeaching Mr. Mayorkas won’t affect policy or even the politics of border security. Most voters don’t know who he is. Even if the House passes the articles on a largely partisan vote, there is no chance the Democratic Senate will convict him. Impeaching Mr. Mayorkas would be the political equivalent of a no-confidence vote. This would continue Congress’s recent trend of defining impeachment down.

[OCS: It will serve to check the activities of the progressive communist democrats who believe that they are sheltered from accountability by the legacy media, including the Wall Street Journal’s Editorial Board.

As for a Senate conviction, let those Democrats standing for re-election ratify the material harm caused to the United States and be held accountable for their acquiescence of an invasion.]

Grandstanding is easier than governing, and Republicans have to decide whether to accomplish anything other than impeaching Democrats. Mr. Mayorkas is an easy political target, but impeaching him accomplishes nothing beyond political symbolism.

[OCS: It is time to do to the progressive communist democrats what they have done to Republicans—as a lesson in political accountability.]

A better idea is to strike a deal with Mr. Biden on serious border-security reforms that would restrict his discretion on parole, rewrite the asylum standard, and give the executive other tools to control the border. If Messrs. Mayorkas and Biden refuse to use them, the GOP will have an election issue. And the tools will be there for the next President to use.

[OCS: Once again, the Editorial Board is asking for surrender to the progressive communist democrats, their replacement project, and their increasing dictatorial authoritarianism.]

<Source: WSJ>