Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas was jetting to the border with President Biden on Thursday when the House Judiciary Committee announced it had slapped him with a subpoena demanding information on why his agents have been messing with Texas’s border solutions.
Panel Chairman Jim Jordan said he’s been trying for months to get the information on why the Border Patrol has been cutting through the razor wire Texas laid along the Rio Grande to try to deter illegal immigration.
Mr. Jordan said the department promised a briefing then canceled it without good reason, so he had to issue the subpoena.
“The Committee has in good faith attempted to work with DHS to scope and prioritize its requests. However, the reality is, in the more than three months since the Committee’s initial request, DHS has produced nothing at all,” Mr. Jordan wrote.
The Ohio Republican said he’s trying to understand what’s going on in Eagle Pass, where the clash between Texas and the feds is most acute.
It’s also the spot where former President Donald Trump is visiting Thursday. Mr. Biden and Mr. Mayorkas, meanwhile, are heading several hundred miles down the Rio Grande in Brownsville.
Mr. Jordan said he was troubled by Mr. Mayorkas’ decision last year to suspend legal traffic at several border crossings, while failing to stop the surge of illegal immigrants.
“Indeed, the events in Eagle Pass illustrate the broader effects of the Biden Administration’s open-borders policies: benefits for illegal aliens and harm and endangerment for American communities,” the congressman wrote.
Homeland Security said it can’t share the information because it’s part of an ongoing lawsuit between Texas and the department.
“This subpoena is a ploy for media attention,” spokesperson Mia Ehrenberg said.
The department says it has been forthcoming to Congress, responding to more than 1,400 letters since the start of 2021 and taking part in more than 50 congressional hearings since the start of 2023.
Mr. Jordan said the department, just before a January deadline to respond, had offered to do a briefing for the committee. But that offer was rescinded days later, after House Speaker Mike Johnson led a delegation of dozens of lawmakers to Eagle Pass.
According to Mr. Jordan, the department said the lawmakers had gotten all the information they needed.
But Mr. Jordan wondered why they bothered to offer the briefing in the first place, since Mr. Johnson’s trip was looming at the time. He said the department also offered “unrelated” materials such as website statistics as an answer to the committee’s questions.
“The Committee does not consider the unrelated briefings DHS cites responsive to its requests,” Mr. Jordan wrote.
The clash comes just weeks after the House voted to impeach Mr. Mayorkas, making him the first sitting Cabinet secretary in U.S. history to face that ignominy.