Impeached DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas might be protected by the vote of Senate Democrats, but he cannot just merely hide behind President Joe Biden for the failure to enforce border law — or his own complicity in lying to Congress — according to one of the GOP's impeachment managers on Newsmax.
"Secretary Mayorkas is wrong," when he says he was merely following the orders of Biden, Rep. Michael Guest, R-Miss., told Saturday's "America Right Now." "You know, Secretary Mayorkas does have to answer the president, but the law clearly states that it is his duty, Secretary Mayorkas' duty, not the president's.
"It's his duty to detain inmates, to detain immigrants. It's his duty to remove those immigrants. It's Mayorkas' duty to make sure that if you are paroling people in the country it's on a case by case basis, not the mass parole that we've seen. And Secretary Mayorkas is the one that lied to Congress. He was the one that came in repeatedly, time and time again, raised his right hand, swore to tell the truth, and then lied when he said that our border was secure and that we had operational control.
"Joe Biden didn't come into Congress and make those lies. Those lies were issued at the lips of Secretary Mayorkas, and he is the one who must be held accountable."
Still, the divided Congress has a 60-vote Senate threshold to reach and getting 11 Democrats and independents to vote with the 49 Republicans to impeach a Biden Cabinet secretary is going to be a tall order.
"We intend to lay out a very simple case," Guest told host Tom Basile. "This is not difficult. We're going to talk about the cause and effect."
Mayorkas "inherited one of the most secure borders in modern history," according to Guest, only to set records for mass illegal border crossers that has forced Texas to ship the influx to overwhelmed Democrat sanctuary cities and states.
"Under his leadership, under his refusal to enforce the law, we see that we now have a humanitarian crisis," Guest continued, laying out the House GOP case to be before the Senate (49 Republicans, 48 Democrats, and three independents that caucus with Democrats). "We're going to talk about statistics — like the fact that there were over 370,000 illegal immigrants that entered the country in December. And we're also going to talk about the financial impact it has had on our communities.
"We're going to talk about the public safety aspect, as we've seen recent cases of violent crimes committed by illegal immigrants. And we're going to talk about the public health aspect, where we see that the leading cause of death now for individuals 18-45 is, in fact, drug overdose — most of those times the fentanyl, which is coming across our unsecured southern border."
Regardless of the Democrats in the Senate protecting Mayorkas in the eventual vote, House Republicans had a duty to push the enforcement of the law that the Biden administration is failing on for the American people, according to Guest.
"Time and time again we've seen Secretary Mayorkas refused to enforce the law," he said. "We see him come in, and we see him lie to the general public. We've seen him lie to Congress. And this is the opportunity for us — and for the Senate, hopefully — to be able to say, 'Hey, we're going to enforce a law': just like we did with George Santos.
"George Santos was removed from Congress because he violated the ethical standards of Congress; bipartisan vote, Republicans and Democrats sought to do that. This is exactly on the same vein. We have a responsibility to hold him accountable, and we are going to fulfill that responsibility."
Democrats cannot run from Mayorkas or Biden's complicity, even if they fail to vote outside of party lines, putting the political risk on Democrats instead of the GOP for failing to convict a Cabinet secretary, Guest concluded.
"I believe it's more risky for the administration and for Democrats to continue to defend Secretary Maykoras," he said. "They are defending a rogue Cabinet secretary who has refused to enforce the law and who's lied to Congress.
"We see that Democrats time and time again have tried to shift the blame on the border. First, they blame [former] President [Donald] Trump. Then they blame climate change. Now they blame Republicans: the fact that Republicans in the House refused to take a deal that was made in the Senate.
"And if the Democrats really want to close the border, they can take up H.R.2, which Republicans passed last spring; and they can take up the appropriations bill that the House passed last fall. Both of those bills would add additional Border Patrol agents, additional money for technology. And they would increase the detention beds to a number of 41,500 detention beds — well over the amount that this administration requested.
"The Democrats have the ability to take some of the solutions offered by the House; they refuse to do so. Instead they want to play politics, and they want to blame Republicans for the crisis that they have created."
About NEWSMAX TV:
NEWSMAX is the fastest-growing cable news channel in America!
- Find Newsmax channel in your home via cable and satellite systems – More Info Here
- Watch Newsmax+ on your home TV app or smartphone and watch it anywhere! Try it for FREE – See More Here: NewsmaxPlus.com