Mayorkas Bobs and Weaves Around Truth

In September 2022, weeks before the mid-term election, then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced the GOP’s “Commitment to America,” a promise that a newly elected GOP majority would create an “economy that’s strong,” “a nation that’s safe,” “a future that’s built on freedom” and “a government that’s accountable.” Expanding the safe-nation vow, Republicans pledged to "secure the southern border," "reduce crime and stop fentanyl" and "defend our national security."

The GOP squeezed out a narrow House majority, and could do no better than a 50-50 Senate tie, leaving deciding votes to Vice-President Kamala Harris. In the ensuing 15 months, month-over-month border conditions consistently worsened. When McCarthy made his announcement, just before fiscal year 2022 ended, 2.8 illegal aliens had crossed the border, a record at the time. The following year, a House Committee on Homeland Security released its report titled “Startling Stats” which found that in FY 2023, CBP arrested 35,433 aliens with criminal convictions or outstanding warrants, including 598 known gang members, 178 of those being MS-13 members. CBP, including its Air and Marine Operations, seized 27,293 pounds of fentanyl coming across the Southwest border, an 88% increase over FY 2022, and enough to kill, the committee estimated, about 6 billion people. So much for the “Commitment to America” and its promise to secure the southern border, stop fentanyl, and defend national security.

For months, congressional Republicans made rumblings about impeaching Mayorkas, but their words were empty. The low point came when, in November 2022, California’s Tom McLintock, the House Judiciary’s Chairman of the Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement, joined with Democrats and seven other Republicans to vote against a resolution to impeach Mayorkas. When, two years into the invasion, a leading Republican who oversees “immigration integrity” teams up with committed open borders Democrats like House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, enforcement is a pipe dream.

From the instant Biden signed his Day One Executive Orders that undid former President Donald Trump’s actions to restore prudent immigration, migrant caravans moved north. Interviewed along the way, the illegal aliens, also encouraged by Biden’s campaign promise to welcome asylum seekers and to end deportations, expressed confidence that work authorization and employment awaited them. Within a few weeks, the migrants’ predictions came true. At that relatively early juncture in what was Mayorkas’ clearly brazen and treasonous disregard for federal immigration law, the House should have impeached the DHS Secretary. In the end, the motion would have failed. But an early House effort might have moved the border chaos higher up on the public’s radar. Instead, unchecked, Mayorkas’ unconstitutional dismantling of established immigration law at the border and the interior accelerated.

After months of back and forth, the House appears ready to begin the impeachment process against Mayorkas. On their trip to Eagle Pass, the 600+ House delegation that included House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green, R-Tenn., said that his panel will officially begin an effort this month to impeach Mayorkas, an indefatigable witness. In his multiple appearances before the House and national television audiences, Mayorkas has proven adept at giving vague answers to specific questions or avoiding any response. [House impeachment hearings begin January 10.]

Most recent example: During a January 4 nationally televised interview, Mayorkas refused to state exactly how many illegal aliens immigration officials apprehended crossing the US-Mexico border between ports of entry have been released into the interior under the Biden administration. Although Mayorkas admitted he knew the number, he refused to share the data. Little wonder that Mayorkas was tight-lipped. The House Judiciary Committee knows the answer that Mayorkas deceitfully concealed. Since Biden took office Jan. 20, 2021, at least 3.8 million illegal aliens either have been released into the nation’s interior or successfully evaded Customs and Border Protection agents to enter the country, a population that exceeds that of 22 states and the District of Columbia.

When pressed to provide a solution, Mayorkas invariably points to Congress to fix the nation’s “broken immigration system,” three words that translate to amnesty. But if existing immigration laws had been enforced for the last five decades rather than disregarded in varying degrees by eight consecutive Republican and Democratic administrations---Carter, Reagan, Bush 41, Clinton, Bush 43, Obama, Trump, and most catastrophically, Biden---sovereign America wouldn’t be in its current dire straits. Secure borders aren’t a Republican or Democratic issue, but a national U.S. priority.

Joe Guzzardi is a Project for Immigration Reform analyst who has written about immigration for more than 30 years. Contact him at jguzzardi@ifspp.org