OFFICIALS LEGISLATION INTEREST GROUPS PUBLIC STATEMENTS COMMITTEES VETOES

Impeaching Alejandro Nicholas Mayorkas, Secretary of Homeland Security, for High Crimes and Misdemeanors

Floor Speech

Date: Feb. 6, 2024
Location: Washington, DC

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Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to the sham impeachment of Secretary Mayorkas.

This resolution is filled with false and misleading statements that amount to nothing more than policy disagreements. Even if it were based in truth, however, policy disagreements are not a legitimate basis for impeachment.

Impeaching a Cabinet Secretary is serious. Unfortunately, House Republicans are not. This sham impeachment ran roughshod over due process and completely bypassed the Judiciary Committee, the committee of jurisdiction for impeachment.

This is not a serious effort, nor is it a serious resolution.

Republicans allege that Secretary Mayorkas should be impeached simply because he failed to meet the impossible standards set out in our laws, standards that no administration, not even President Trump's, has ever come close to meeting.

For example, they allege that Secretary Mayorkas failed to detain everyone that the law requires to be held in mandatory detention. To do so would require Congress to appropriate over $35 billion a year, a number 10 times higher than President Trump ever requested for detention. That is why the Trump administration released over 500,000 people at the U.S.-Mexico border and released 1.1 million people from immigration detention into the United States.

Did we hear calls from the Republicans to impeach Secretaries Kelly, Duke, or Nielsen? Of course not.

The resolution also takes aim at the Secretary's use of his parole authority, but Republicans never complained when President Trump used his parole authority for tens of thousands of Cubans and military families.

So, what is different now? Could it be that it is an election year and Republicans have no record of accomplishments to run on?

With no ideas, no agenda, and no ability to govern, they are cheapening the serious and awesome power of impeachment to score a few cheap political points. That is shameful.

Our immigration system has been broken for decades. Impeaching a Cabinet Secretary because you do not like their policies will not repair it. Only bipartisan reform can do that.

Madam Speaker, I encourage my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this resolution.

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