Articles of Impeachment Against Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas

Floor Speech

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Mr. BENTZ. Mr. Speaker, this morning the House Committee on Homeland Security passed two Articles of Impeachment accusing Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas of high crimes and misdemeanors.

I have thought, and with the information developed by the committee, have come to believe that Secretary Mayorkas should be impeached for his clear violation of the law, and when this matter comes to the floor, I intend to vote in favor of his impeachment.

That said, today I wish to remark upon the importance and merit, when it comes to most things, and certainly impeachment, of the value of carefully following proper process.

Impeachment is a constitutional function of the highest order, and when considering its use, we must transcend passions and politics. If impeachment is to remain what the Founders intended, and that is something greater than a political tool deployed whenever the mood suits, then it must be used as originally designed: as a means of holding people who have political power accountable when they violate the high crimes and misdemeanors standard.

If we fail to follow best practices in this effort, then impeachment will soon become little more than a sad and ineffective means of expressing dissatisfaction with the policies of the opposing party.

It has correctly been said that the object of the House in an impeachment proceeding is to create a full record upon which a verdict in the Senate can be fairly and efficiently adjudged.

Thanks to Chairman Mark Green's excellent work, this is exactly what has happened. Over the past 10 months, including important recent evidentiary hearings, Chairman Mark Green's Homeland Security Committee, using an open and deliberative process, has carefully created a full record reflecting Secretary Mayorkas' violation of statutory and constitutional standards upon which the Senate can and should deliberate.

That process has not only developed the facts and evidence of breaches of our laws, it has also allowed full debate and full disclosure to our Nation of what our law requires and the Secretary's intentional circumvention of those laws.

Had we not completed this investigative process, we would have not only weakened the impeachment remedy, but we would have also made it much easier for the Senate to ignore the excellent work the committee has now done.

Just a few words about Article I of the Homeland Security Committee's impeachment resolution:

United States Code 8 U.S.C. 1226(c) explicitly states that illegal aliens who have a criminal conviction shall be detained. Yet Secretary Mayorkas literally ordered DHS employees to not enforce this law. This is not mere neglect, nor can this violation be excused as a result of not having space available in the detention facilities. There were and are spaces available, and if there were not, the Secretary could and should have asked for increased funding in the DHS budget.

In fact, when Secretary Mayorkas appeared before the Judiciary Committee, on which I sit, I asked why he had not requested more money for his department's budget instead of less.

Because we Republicans followed regular order and completed the hearing process, we have met and exceeded the threshold of evidence necessary to justify a trial. The record established by Chairman Mark Green's Homeland Security Committee contains adequate evidence of the Secretary's breach of our laws, and this constitutes more than an adequate foundation for his impeachment.

Thus, when the Senate receives this impeachment resolution, it will have the evidence needed to render a fair and efficient verdict, and that verdict should be that the Secretary is guilty of breaking our Nation's laws and should be convicted and removed from office.

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