FIRST ON FOX: The House Homeland Security Committee will hold a hearing next week that officially launches an investigation into the alleged “dereliction of duty” by DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in his handling of the ongoing crisis at the southern border.
The hearing, “Open Borders, Closed Case: Secretary Mayorkas’ Dereliction of Duty on the Border Crisis” will take place on Wednesday and will include testimony from former acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf, former Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott and former acting U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Joe Edlow.
The committee has undertaken a vigorous oversight timetable toward the Biden administration’s handling of the migrant crisis — which spiraled to historic levels under its watch. The committee held a bombshell field hearing in March, in which Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz described a situation in which agents were overwhelmed in multiple sectors and there was no operational control of the border. DHS later clarified that the operational control definition discussed was one where all unlawful entries are prevented — which no administration has achieved.
Since then, the committee played a central role in forming a border and immigration package, which passed the House in May, but has not yet been picked up in the Senate.
A number of Republicans, including House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, have floated a potential impeachment of Mayorkas — with some members even introducing articles of impeachment against the DHS chief. But Green says the committee isn’t at that point yet.
“My mission as the chairman of [the committee] is ‘get to the facts.’ So we’re not talking about that. We’re not using that word. Every single thing we’re going to look at, every rock we’re going to look under is to find the facts,” he said. “And the facts, I think, are going to show that he has disregarded the laws passed by Congress, subverted those laws, been dishonest to Congress and the American people, among many, many other things. And we’re just going to get to the bottom of all that.”
APPEALS COURT DENIES BIDEN ADMIN REQUEST FOR STAY IN CHALLENGE TO MIGRANT RELEASE POLICY
“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,” the spokesperson said.
Green is skeptical of the numbers cited by the administration, noting that they are comparing to a historic spike of 10,000 migrants a day seen a few days before the end of Title 42, and arguing that there has been a lack of transparency on specific numbers from the administration that his committee has requested.
“It’s a shell game, and we’re going to get to the bottom of that in this investigation, too,” he said.
“So I think I have a duty to find out the answers about why and how. And I need to inform the American people of just exactly the failure that this secretary has been,” he added.