Ahead of the House’s final committee hearing in the impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, the Biden administration has gone on the offense to denounce what it calls the GOP’s “rushed” process.
While Republicans atop the Homeland Security Committee have cast Mayorkas as unwilling to work with or even appear before Congress as they move swiftly to impeach him, the DHS and Democrats say the GOP has laid a trap for them and is not operating in good faith.
“It’s abundantly clear that they are not interested in hearing from Secretary Mayorkas since it doesn’t fit into their bad-faith, predetermined and unconstitutional rush to impeach him,” DHS press secretary Mia Ehrenberg said in a statement to the Washington Examiner.
Committee Chairman Mark Green (R-TN), who reportedly promised in a private meeting with donors before he began an investigation to charge Mayorkas with high crimes and misdemeanors, attempted to paint Mayorkas on Wednesday as unwilling to cooperate with his impeachment efforts, which began this month. The committee has held 15 border-related hearings largely focused on Mayorkas’s job performance over the past year.
Green claimed in a letter Wednesday morning that Mayorkas had refused to appear before the committee and added that the secretary had not made time for testimony since late last summer. Green, who requested written testimony if Mayorkas could not appear in person, said he “ultimately rejected” the committee’s Jan. 5 request to appear in person on Jan. 18, the date for the panel’s second and final impeachment-focused hearing.
The DHS fired back at Green in a statement Wednesday, one day before the hearing.
“Last week, the Secretary offered to testify publicly before the Committee; in the time since, the Committee failed to respond to DHS to find a mutually agreeable date. Instead, [Republicans] provided this offer of written testimony to the media before any outreach to the Department,” Ehrenberg said. “Republicans have yet again demonstrated their preference for playing politics rather than work together to address the serious issues at the border. … This is just the latest example of Committee Republicans’ sham process.”
Documents provided by the committee showed that the DHS did respond to Green on Jan. 11 and described having previously scheduled meetings with Mexican officials the week that they wanted him to appear. The DHS agreed to find another day to have Mayorkas appear before the committee but said it did not hear back from Green.
On Wednesday, Green cast the scheduling conflict as Mayorkas “putting the interests of Mexico ahead of the American people.” Green wrote Mayorkas days after his initial response demanding that he submit written testimony in the next 24 hours.
The DHS pointed to Mayorkas’s extensive appearances in congressional hearings since 2021, including seven before Green’s committee alone, as evidence of the secretary’s forthrightness.
In fact, Mayorkas has testified before the House and Senate 27 times in less than three years, more than any other Cabinet member.
Despite his frequent appearances on Capitol Hill, particularly while overseeing the department’s operations amid the highest-ever number of encounters of illegal immigrants at the nation’s border, Green then claimed Mayorkas has not appeared before the committee since he asked the secretary in an August 2023 request.
“The Committee has given Secretary Mayorkas chance after chance to appear and explain his actions, decisions, and statements to us and to the American people. Over the past several months, he has tacitly rejected those offers, resorting instead to political games and delay. We would have liked to include his oral testimony in the official record of these historic proceedings,” Green wrote. “Our request for written testimony from Secretary Mayorkas is his last chance to show some semblance of respect for the people’s representatives and our constitutional oversight duties.”
Committee records show that Mayorkas traveled to the Capitol on Nov. 11 and testified about worldwide threats to the U.S., a four-hour hearing that focused heavily on the border. Green pushed back again and said Mayorkas had not specifically attended a border-themed hearing in recent months.
Mayorkas testified before Green’s committee on March 17, 2021; June 17, 2021; Sept. 22, 2021; April 27, 2022; Nov. 5, 2022; April 19, 2023; and Nov. 15, 2023.
The first impeachment hearing on Jan. 10 devolved into a debate over whether Mayorkas carrying out President Joe Biden’s border policy amounted to high crimes and misdemeanors.
In a four-hour event that pitted Democratic lawmakers against the majority GOP, Democrats repeatedly questioned the legal grounds for the proceedings in the committee. They charged Republicans with waging a politically driven show during an election year over nothing more than differences in opinion on immigration issues.
Republicans have maintained that Mayorkas was unwilling to stop or was intentionally allowing millions of immigrants to enter the U.S. from Mexico illegally.
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The committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), said during the first hearing that the committee’s initial focus on investigating Mayorkas on the basis of his “dereliction of duty” was irrelevant because it is not a high crime or misdemeanor.
“You cannot impeach a Cabinet secretary because you don’t like a president’s policies. That’s not what impeachment is for. That’s not what the Constitution says,” Thompson said.