Ranking Member Thompson Hearing Statement - Case closed: Extreme MAGA Republicans only care about impeaching Secretary Mayorkas

(WASHINGTON) - Americans have gotten used to political theater from congressional Republicans, but this hearing is a new low. You don’t have to look further than the title to know this hearing is a sham. Calling a hearing and saying “case closed” before you’ve heard any testimony is not legitimate oversight. It’s obvious this hearing isn’t really about border security. It’s not even really about Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas or the Department of Homeland Security. It’s about partisan politics.

It’s about House Republican leadership catering to its most extreme MAGA Members, who want to impeach someone — anyone at all. It’s about trying to make good on GOP backroom deals to elect a Speaker, raise the debt ceiling, and stave off a mutiny in the Republican ranks.

If the hearing title alone doesn’t make that obvious, just look at who the Majority has invited to testify. The last time this Committee called Mr. Wolf to testify, he was serving in the role of Acting Secretary of Homeland Security. He was asked to testify at the Committee’s annual hearing on threats to the homeland, but he refused to appear. He was subpoenaed and ultimately defied that subpoena.

Mr. Wolf was a no-show at a hearing to inform Congress on terrorist threats facing our Nation.  But he’s come to the Hill twice in the last week to appear before the Judiciary Committee and here today to engage in political gamesmanship. Perhaps Mr. Wolf is also trying to distract from his abysmal tenure at DHS — a tenure that included:

• the Department intentionally taking children from their parents at the border
• changing and delaying a report on Russian interference in the 2020 election
• and misusing DHS personnel to crack down on peaceful protestors in Portland.

As it turns out, he was serving unlawfully as Acting Secretary, having been appointed outside the Department’s succession order.

In fact, Mr. Wolf was the 5^th person to run DHS and the 2^nd to do so unlawfully in less than three years under President Trump – a stark reminder of the chaos and dysfunction of that Administration.

I expect that today Republicans will try to rewrite the history of the Trump Administration and its border security and immigration policies. But the truth is, under the last Administration, DHS took children from their parents; forced individuals fleeing violence and persecution to wait in Mexico; and expelled unaccompanied children at our border.  The truth is, the last Administration dismantled our lawful immigration system to the point where it could barely function.

These policies were not only terribly cruel, but also incredibly ineffective. They didn’t address fundamental border security challenges, fix our broken immigration system, or respond to the ongoing global migration phenomenon. Instead, they made the problem worse — for example, the number of encounters at the border jumped sharply after President Trump implemented Title 42. And they made vulnerable people suffer. That is the mess the Biden Administration inherited, and that is what Secretary Mayorkas has had to deal with since taking office.

Legitimate oversight follows the facts, and the fact is that the Biden Administration’s plans to address these challenges are working. The number of Border Patrol encounters have plummeted by 70 percent since the Biden Administration ended Title 42 ended last month. The number of overall border encounters have dropped by 50 percent in that time, due in large part to DHS’ hard work under Secretary Mayorkas’ leadership.

The Biden Administration has reestablished lawful pathways for migrants to access the asylum system. It has also utilized parole on a case-by-case basis for those fleeing certain totalitarian or communist regimes in our hemisphere. At the same time, it has made clear that our borders are not open and those arriving outside of lawful pathways will be sent home. Recent deportation and removal numbers reflect that hard reality for many.

But unlike its predecessor, the Biden Administration is enforcing border and immigration laws in an orderly, humane way, consistent with precedent set by prior administrations of both parties. Some may not like that, but those are policy differences and nothing more.

You don’t impeach a cabinet secretary because you don’t like their policies. And you certainly don’t impeach a cabinet secretary to appease extreme members of your political party.  Secretary Mayorkas is fulfilling his duty under the law and to the American people.

If the Republican Majority doesn’t like what he’s doing, they should work with Democrats to pass bipartisan border security and immigration reform legislation. Apparently, they prefer political theater and a sloppy, inaccurate “report” instead.

Hearing video stream available here.

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Press Contact

Adam Comis at 202-225-9978

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