Republican lawmakers in Washington have a clear message for the Biden administration official at the center of the nation's ongoing border crisis: your handling of the border crisis will be exposed.
With passing border reforms and terminating Title 42 in the rearview mirror, House Republicans are returning their focus to Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for how they claim he has failed to get control of the U.S.-Mexico border following 5.3 million illegal border crossings since February 2021.
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The House Homeland Security Committee, the panel overseeing Mayorkas's agency, announced Thursday that it will conduct a "comprehensive" investigation into allegations that the cabinet official is in "dereliction of duty."
"The Homeland Security Committee will leave no stone unturned in our efforts to get the facts," said House Homeland Security Chairman Mark Green (R-TN). "With over five million alien encounters at the Southwest border, 1.5 million known gotaways, and DHS’ use of the CBP One app to hide the truth, it’s imperative we shine a light on the misleading claims and intentionally reckless policy decisions that have created the worst border crisis in American history.”
Despite plans to examine the matter in a public hearing on June 14, Green appeared to have already reached a conclusion to the forthcoming investigation, as evidenced by the hearing's title, "Open borders, closed case."
Green's committee will bring in political officials who worked for President Donald Trump, as well as a former nonpolitical federal law enforcement official who retired as he began speaking out against orders.
Witnesses will include former acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf and former acting United States Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Joe Edlow. Former Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott will also testify.
However, some House Democrats, including Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), have questioned why Republicans will bring in as their key witnesses Trump-era DHS officials who have no present experience working with Mayorkas as opposed to current political appointees who would be in a better position to have evidence of Republicans claims.
Republicans spent the first five months of their newfound House majority putting together and passing a package of immigration policies to end the record-high number of noncitizens attempting to enter the U.S. unlawfully, while also pushing the Biden administration to enhance its plan for how to respond to the border crisis when it ended a public health policy that was expected to open the border to mass crossings.
Although Republicans, and some Democrats, had warned that ending pandemic health policy Title 42 would result in unprecedented illegal migration attempts, the border crossings fell to the lowest levels since Biden took office.
The DHS has touted a 70% decline in the number of noncitizens apprehended by Border Patrol between the ports of entry in the weeks leading up to Title 42 ending on May 11 and in the weeks since.
But Green and other Republicans have claimed the Biden administration's new procedures for immigrants to seek admission are illegal and only a way to make illegal crossings at the border appear to be down where instead, immigrants are being paroled into the country through alternative legal means.
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A DHS official authorized to speak with media said Thursday that the claims Mayorkas was purposely neglecting or allowing high illegal immigration at the southern were "baseless."
"The Department will continue to enforce our laws and secure our border, protect the United States from terrorism, and improve our cybersecurity, all while building a safe, orderly, and humane immigration system," a DHS spokesperson wrote in an email Thursday. "Instead of pointing fingers and pursuing baseless attacks, Congress should work with the Department and pass comprehensive legislation to fix our broken immigration system, which has not been updated in decades.”