A top House Republican appears to be fed up with his party’s delay in moving to impeach Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
On Friday, House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN) urged the impeachment of Mayorkas, citing the top border official’s “failure to act” as grounds for Congress to remove him from his position.
During a one-on-one interview in his Capitol Hill office with Breitbart News, the Minnesota Republican passionately discussed the topic of impeachment, emphasizing that the overwhelmed southern border epitomizes what he considers to be the “greatest malfeasance” attributable to President Joe Biden’s chief border official.
“They talk about being humane. Children are disappearing. People are getting killed,” Emmer told the outlet. “You’ve got 80 people that have come across the southern border that are on the terrorist watch list.”
Emmer’s remarks followed Biden’s decision to lift Title 42, a policy initially implemented by former President Donald Trump in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The policy has been viewed as one of the remaining tools available to border officials in their efforts to address and manage the influx of illegal migration.
Prior to Thursday, the Biden administration had seen more than five million encounters of illegal migrants at the southern border, according to federal data cited by Breitbart News.
“This, to me, is the greatest malfeasance, and malfeasance is — it’s not a failure to act — it’s an intentional failure to act. Mayorkas should be impeached,” Emmer added. “I think we should be talking seriously about that regardless of what this feckless Senate might want to do.”
In addition, Emmer, who holds the position of the third-ranking Republican in the GOP-controlled House, went further to assert that the Biden administration bears responsibility for severe consequences, stating that they have “blood on their hands.”
His statement was similar to remarks made by Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, during a press conference the day before.
“Mayorkas is guilty of child abuse, in my opinion, by not vetting the sponsors of the parents, supposedly, or sponsors of these children,” McCaul told reporters minutes after the House passed Republicans’ marquee border security bill on Thursday.
The White House expressed its frustration on Friday following a federal judge’s decision on Thursday to halt the Biden administration’s plans to implement a policy allowing the release of migrants without providing court dates.
The ruling came just hours before the expiration of Title 42.