The House on Tuesday voted to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, but the Democrat-controlled Senate is not expected to vote to remove him from office.
“There isn’t a whole lot of power we have,” Rep. Mark Green, R-Tenn., chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said of House members’ ability to push the Senate to hold a trial to consider ousting the homeland security chief.
With the two articles of impeachment now in the hands of the Senate, Green explained, Senate Majority Leader “Chuck Schumer and his guys can … either not hear it at all, they can have us come over and be referred to a committee and it’s heard then in a committee and dies in a committee, or they can have us present to the entire Senate.”
Green and his colleagues who backed the impeachment are “going to get loud,” the Tennessee lawmaker said. “We’re going to get really loud. They’re going to pay for it if they don’t do something,” Green said of the Senate, “because the American people are with us on this.”
Green joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to discuss what the House Homeland Security Committee uncovered during its nearly yearlong investigation into Mayorkas that culminated in the secretary’s impeachment.
During the five-phase investigation, Green said he was fascinated by Mayorkas’ “inability to tell the truth.”
“What’s shocking is, Mayorkas just looks at you and tells you a boldfaced lie and, you know, doesn’t seem to bat an eye. And I’ve never seen someone who could, under oath, do that like him,” Green said. “It’s really, honestly, shocking.”
Green notes that Mayorkas has claimed that the border is “secure,” which, Green says, “is a lie.”
Furthermore, in April 2022, Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, asked Mayorkas during a hearing: “Will you testify under oath right now: Do we have operational control [of the border], yes or no?”
“Yes, we do,” Mayorkas responded.
Roy had the definition of operation control on display during the hearing. The Secure Fence Act of 2006 defines operational control of the border as “prevention of all unlawful entries into the United States, including entries by terrorists, other unlawful aliens, instruments of terrorism, narcotics, and other contraband.”
During a hearing in July, Roy argued that Mayorkas was being dishonest with the American people when he claimed to have operational control of the border even as thousands of illegal aliens a day were crossing it.
The Secure Fence Act “provides statutorily that operational control is defined as preventing all unlawful entries into the United States,” Mayorkas said in defending his record during a Senate hearing in March 2023. He added: “By that definition, no administration has ever had operational control.”
With Republicans and Democrats unable to reach a consensus on border security measures, Green says, “tragically,” he does not have “a whole lot of hope” that much will change along the southern border in the coming months.
Listen to the full conversation with Green on “The Daily Signal Podcast” below:
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