Calls among House Republicans to begin impeachment proceedings against Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas have grown after a week of chaotic and record-breaking illegal migration activity at the southern border.
Several members of the House Judiciary Committee, the committee responsible for conducting impeachments, say they support moving forward with the process.
“He should be impeached as soon as humanly possible,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) told reporters on Tuesday.
Rep. Ben Cline (R-VA) told Breitbart News, “I support beginning impeachment hearings. I’ve said that to chairman [Jim] Jordan. My constituents think it’s long overdue, and I feel as though once we lay out the facts for the American people and for my colleagues in the House, it’ll be inevitable.”
Rep. Barry Moore (R-AL) said in a statement, “Mayorkas has done more to help the cartels and child traffickers than he has to help the American people. It is clear he is intentionally violating the law and he must be impeached.”
The calls come after the Biden administration lifted the Title 42 border protection last week, which followed at least two consecutive days of border officials apprehending more than 10,000 illegal migrants per day, the highest single-day totals ever recorded, Fox News observed.
Overall, under Mayorkas’s watch, officials have apprehended more than five million illegal migrants at the southern border, not including an estimated 1.5 million gotaways.
Dismissing calls for his impeachment, Mayorkas told CNN over the weekend, “I am focused on the work in front of us. … I will continue to focus on [DHS’s] work throughout my tenure.”
Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), a longtime border hawk, is working on rallying support for his articles of impeachment against the secretary, which he introduced in February.
The Arizona Republican is “full steam ahead,” his spokesman said Tuesday.
Jordan, likewise, has openly said he believes Mayorkas is worthy of impeachment, but the chairman behind the scenes is still working with some of his members and the Homeland Security Committee on how best to approach it, a person familiar with the matter told Breitbart News.
Hearings among the two committees on border security and immigration, including one in Judiciary by the end of July that will feature Mayorkas, would likely first need to lay out how the secretary is guilty of an impeachable offense.
Homeland Security Committee chairman Rep. Mark Green (R-TX) is expected to continue with a “factfinding mission” related to failures at the border that, per his spokeswoman, could ultimately serve as the investigative support to the Judiciary Committee’s potential pursuit of voting on impeachment articles.
In perhaps the clearest sign yet of conference-wide interest in removing Mayorkas from his position, House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN) revealed to Breitbart News on Friday that he was in favor of impeachment.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) was less direct at a press conference Tuesday, telling reporters that he has a “constitutional point of view” on impeachment but reminding them that he had called on Mayorkas to resign months ago because the secretary had “failed at his job.”
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), another Judiciary Committee member who would vote in favor of impeaching Mayorkas, told Breitbart News he believed the secretary could be removed from his position for a “willful nonenforcement of our border.”
“You can’t any longer believe that somebody’s that bad at their job,” Massie said.
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Write to Ashley Oliver at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter at @asholiver.
