‘The current debate is not even whether or not Secretary Mayorkas is guilty as charged, but whether we should even examine the question. Or whether, instead, as the Majority Leader reportedly plans to do, we should hide the evidence from the American people and avoid discussing this Administration’s failures at all costs. Why? Because this is an election year. If the Majority Leader wishes to honor and preserve the world’s greatest deliberative body, I urge him not to take this unprecedented step of blocking consideration of the impeachment articles against Secretary Mayorkas,’ Hagerty says
WASHINGTON—United States Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN) today spoke on the Senate floor calling out Senate Democrats for attempting to use an unprecedented procedural tactic to avoid an impeachment trial and sidestep the Senate’s constitutional responsibility to review the articles of impeachment against Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
Mayorkas was impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives for refusing to carry out his duty to enforce federal immigration law, which has led to the Biden-Administration-precipitated national security and humanitarian crisis at the southern border.
Remarks as prepared for delivery:
In our nation’s 248-year history, the House of Representatives has impeached officials in 21 cases.
Reflecting the grave, highly-rare exercise of this constitutional power, the Senate has tried each such case, except where the person resigned office before the Senate trial, and therefore mooted the issue.
This includes two partisan Democrat impeachments of the former President—one in which Republicans controlled the Senate, and one where it was equally divided.
Shattering norms is becoming a defining theme for Democrats this year.
Why are my Democrat colleagues so eager to shirk their constitutional duty and ignore an impeachment?
Because they want to ignore the damning evidence of Secretary Mayorkas’s willful violations of immigration law.
I can think of no better example than the Secretary’s decision to willfully and knowingly exceed his parole authority set forth in the Immigration and Nationality Act.
That law permits the Secretary to grant parole, but only on a case-by-case basis, temporarily, and “for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit”.
For example, when a person is in need of urgent medical care or to attend a family member’s funeral. Not flooding 30,000 people a month into the country.
He has even created a new taxpayer-funded parole program to allow aliens from numerous countries to be flown directly into the United States.
He’s abused his case-by-case parole authority beyond any degree imaginable. He’s now flying 30,000 illegal aliens per month directly into the United States for resettlement.
This is a blatant violation and abuse of the parole law.
Two weeks ago, every single Senate Democrat voted against my appropriations amendment to defund this very parole flight program.
That vote is impossible to explain to ordinary Americans. They see the absurdity of flying in tens of thousands of illegal aliens in the midst of an illegal immigration crisis.
So, instead, partisan “fact checkers” have recently been quibbling over which flights and airports are being used. This is an attempt to distract from the basic problem with this taxpayer-funded program—which is that it’s illegal and absurd. I understand why Democrats want to cover it up, though—it’s the same reason they don’t want to consider these impeachment articles.
Similarly, the Secretary terminated contracts for border wall construction, and refused to expend funds that Congress appropriated for this specific purpose.
Secretary Mayorkas’s impoundment of funds is a clear attempt to usurp the will of Congress by refusing to fulfill their mandate to build the border wall.
The Secretary has also replaced detention mandates in law with unlawful mass catch-and-release policies that encourage illegal immigration.
The law requires that illegal aliens are detained until deported, unless they are clearly, and beyond a doubt, entitled to be allowed into the United States. Instead of complying with this requirement, the Secretary has released millions of illegal aliens into American communities.
We have seen the devastating effects of the Biden Administration’s illegal open borders policies.
We’ve heard from Americans whose lives and property are being destroyed by droves of illegal aliens coming into the United States every single day.
We’ve heard from Border Patrol agents who want nothing more than to do their jobs and secure the border, but whose hands have been tied by the Mayorkas-led Department of Homeland Security.
The American people have seen the chaotic images of the Southern Border under this administration. They have witnessed the ravaging effects of illegal immigration in their communities.
This includes drug overdoses, violent crime, local disorder, and the national-security threat of unknown bad actors from all over the world pouring across the border.
249 people on the terror watch list have been encountered at the Southern Border just last year alone.
Since October, a record number of Chinese nationals—exceeding 22,000—have been encountered by Border Patrol.
In all, over 10 million illegal aliens have crossed the border under the Secretary’s watch.
The collapse of our southern border—and the devastating consequences and future risks it has created for our nation—is the greatest national-security crisis we face. The House of Representatives took the extraordinary step of impeaching a government official for his role in it.
And yet Senate Democrats want to completely ignore all of this.
They don’t want you to hear about it—they want to sweep it under the rug in an election year.
The Secretary’s alleged violations of law warrants a trial before the Senate. It warrants basic diligence in examining the evidence. And every senator should go on record regarding the charges.
I’ve co-sponsored resolutions by several colleagues establishing impeachment procedures that are in line with past Senate impeachment trials. We’re open to debate on the details of the trial process, but there must be a process.
This is an important point. The current debate is not even whether or not Secretary Mayorkas is guilty as charged, but whether we should even examine the question. Or whether, instead, as the Majority Leader reportedly plans to do, we should hide the evidence from the American people and avoid discussing this Administration’s failures at all costs. Why? Because this is an election year.
If the Majority Leader wishes to honor and preserve the world’s greatest deliberative body, I urge him not to take this unprecedented step of blocking consideration of the impeachment articles against Secretary Mayorkas.
I yield the floor.
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