Sham Impeachment of Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas

Floor Speech

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Mr. ESPAILLAT. Mr. Speaker, in 1986, Republican President Ronald Reagan signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act.

That 1986 Reagan bill, in addition to implementing border security, granted a pathway to citizenship to nearly 3 million undocumented immigrants in the United States.

Then in 1990, Mr. Speaker, Republican President George Bush signed another immigration act, which, among other measures, created the Temporary Protective Status program, known as TPS, to provide relief for immigrants from countries who are immersed in deep suffering.

Later on, Mr. Speaker, his son, George W. Bush, also followed through in providing relief to immigrants across the Nation.

Mr. Speaker, what has happened to that Republican Party? I want to know where they are today.

Issues with our immigration system has existed since the Reagan years. The only difference today is their lack of bipartisan desire from MAGA Republicans to work with us and address this issue.

President Bush worked with Senator Kennedy. George W. Bush worked across the aisle to find equal ground. Instead of coming to the table to address issues on the border security and compassionate measures like protections for Dreamers, which 80 percent of voters support, MAGA Republicans are turning their backs on legislation to fix our immigration system.

Instead of doing their jobs, the latest stunt of House Republicans is a bogus, baseless impeachment inquiry of Secretary Mayorkas, which blames a single man for the situation at the border. A situation that has been around since the Reagan years and lays at the doorstep of a single man, Mr. Speaker, this issue. It is a bogus and baseless political tool in an election year. That is what this impeachment proceeding is, Mr. Speaker.

Listen to the Republicans when they speak on this as they have time and time again failed to articulate any charge against Secretary Mayorkas.

Even conservative experts agree this impeachment inquiry is a sham. Michael Chertoff, a former judge and DHS Secretary under President George W. Bush, stated that Republicans have failed to put forward any evidence that meets the bar for this impeachment. This is a bogus impeachment process that is used as a political tool in an election year.

In reality, Secretary Mayorkas has done all he can to improve conditions in the ports of entry where fentanyl comes through every day through wheels, not through migrants.

He has done all he could to bring technology to the border in a balanced approach, but even so, Secretary Mayorkas can only execute the laws that are written by Congress, and this Congress has been negligent, derelict in its duty not to pass comprehensive immigration reform.

Instead of acting with us to fix this issue, Republicans are pursuing a bogus impeachment inquiry, trying to lay a problem that has dragged for decades upon decades upon decades in Republican administrations and Democrat administrations at the doorstep of Secretary Mayorkas. It is a bogus, political tool that they resort to every 4 years to try to get elected.

And that is why, Mr. Speaker, they choose not to fix the problem. They don't want to put it in the rear-view mirror. They want to go to it every 4 years so they can flame xenophobia against ordinary immigrants like myself.

I stand here to denounce this bogus, baseless impeachment proceeding against Secretary Mayorkas. If anybody should be expelled, it is the leadership of that party that has been negligent in their duties to address a balanced approach that takes into consideration border safety, that takes into consideration immigration reform, that takes into consideration the impact on the economy of farmworkers, that takes into consideration the root causes of migration in the hemisphere.

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