Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) blasted Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas during a public hearing on Capitol Hill and accused the Biden administration official of implementing policies that caused “modern-day indentured servitude of minor children” within the United States.

The Missouri senator has made waves for his criticism of Mayorkas during previous committee hearings, but he came down even harder on the DHS secretary in a meeting Tuesday that was meant to discuss the department's funding levels for the next year.

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Hawley cited two New York Times reports from February and April that stated 85,000 unaccompanied children who had crossed the border illegally and were taken into custody during the Biden administration had been released to fake adult sponsors who forced them into horrific living situations.

“In 2021, you made the decision to change Title 42 to allow unaccompanied children to come into the United States and then to be sent into the interior of the country," Hawley said. "Under the last administration, children were reunited with their families in their home country. You changed that, and as soon as you changed it, the numbers exploded.”

Mayorkas opined that the DHS had, in fact, chosen over the past two years to prioritize enforcing worksite laws that protect children, but Hawley responded that had not been what the New York Times found.

“What these articles show, Mr. Secretary, is that the administration has done nothing but facilitate this crisis," Hawley said. "When that huge surge of kids [came] across the border because you changed Title 42 — when it became an optics crisis, what did you do? You began pressuring officials and agencies to skip the vetting process and get these kids out as soon as possible to sponsors who weren't vetted."

Hawley quoted an excerpt about the Biden administration loosening vetting restrictions and urging case managers to find sponsors quickly to avoid holding children in detention for more than one month.

"You have at every stage facilitated this modern-day indentured servitude of minor children. Why should you not be impeached for this?" Hawley asked.

"What we do is we enforce the law, but let me just say this," Mayorkas rebutted later in the back-and-forth. "It is stunning to me — stunning to hear you say that the prior administration reunited children with their parents."

"A moment ago, you were crowing about the fact that you treated children so well, and yet we find tens of thousands of children who are forced to work as slaves because of your policies. And you turn around and blame the prior administration," Hawley said. "I am sick and tired of it, and thousands of children are in physical danger, danger because of what you're doing. You should have resigned long ago, and if you cannot change course, you should be removed from office."

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That exchange capped off tough questioning earlier in the hearing from Sens. Ron Johnson (R-WI) and Roger Marshall (R-KS).

Johnson pushed Mayorkas on the same child trafficking matter, while Marshall cited Freedom of Information Act request results about the secretary using a personal email account for work.