By Chuck Warren
Many reporters in the corporate media sister cities of New York and Washington, D.C. are criticizing some Republicans for their desire to impeach Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas. As expected, progressive media are accusing Republicans of being hyperbolic, playing partisan games with impeachment, and even avenging the two impeachments of Donald Trump.
What they are not saying is that all is fine at the border—because it is not. It is actually a train wreck and anyone who says the United States has operational control of it has not visited the border or are lying.
Then-House Republican Leader Gerald Ford once said that “an impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history.” This was hardly an outrageous observation, and it had its roots in the Constitutional Convention.
The impeachment clause in the Constitution was the brainchild of George Mason and submitted through the Virginia Plan for the Constitution. At the time, Mason observed, “some mode of displacing an unfit magistrate” was necessary, he argued on June 2, without “making the Executive the mere creature of the Legislature.” The Convention’s committee agreed that the executive shall “be removable on impeachment and conviction of malpractice or neglect of duty.” Finally, Alexander Hamilton wrote in the Federalist Papers in defense of impeachment that it “can never be tied down by such strict rules, either in the delineation of the offense by the prosecutors, or in the construction of it by the judges, as in common cases serve to limit the discretion of courts in favor of personal security.”
The root of an impeachable offense is whatever Congress sees it to be. Prudentially, incompetence fits well within what the Founding Fathers envisioned to be a good reason. And incompetence is the definition of Mr. Mayorkas reign at Homeland Security. If he were a banker at one of the Big Five Banks, his ineptitude and willful neglect would have Robert Reich and Sen. Elizabeth Warren throwing fits all day on Twitter (with or without their blue check marks).
Which brings us back to Mayorkas. Since taking over the Homeland Security job, he has overseen an all-time peak in illegal border crossings. March 2022 recorded the highest number in history with 224,000 encounters at the border. According to NBC News, “The number of undocumented immigrant crossings at the southwest border for fiscal year 2022 topped 2.76 million, breaking the previous annual record by more than 1 million, according to Customs and Border Protection data.” These are the numbers we know of.
The number of people going through asylum system has grown by almost 200,000, mostly economic migrants with no real claim, clogging the system for those who have come here legally but cannot get their cases reviewed. Over the same period, over 100,000 Americans have died of overdosing on fentanyl imported from Mexico, not to mention other drugs. These are direct results of his policies.
This isn’t just incompetence; the border is a clear and present danger to our country. His inefficient leadership is having damaging consequences to millions of Americans.
The migrants coming in are not necessarily beneficiaries of his incompetence either. On their way to the United States—or in the United States—they frequently die because of the poor conditions the coyotes subject them to. Every summer, dozens, even hundreds, are reported to die in the back of trucks after being heat-struck. Even those apprehended by the authorities are at risk for city and state governments and citizens are overwhelmed and under-resourced to care for them. And this is not out of cruelty. In 2022, New York City mayor Eric Adams declared a state of emergency, begging for an end to the arrival of migrants that had overwhelmed one of the richest city governments in the world. The number was 17,000 over six months. That’s just one week in El Paso, Texas.
Democrats promised to be more “humane” in securing the border, and Mayorkas executed these progressive, fantasyland policies faithfully. The coyotes correctly interpreted this as “the border is open.” The evidence for how little Mayorkas cares about border security is his public statements. The number of times he has tweeted about border security has been a handful. Similarly, the only times he talks about the issue is when Republicans ask him about it during Congressional hearings. He has requested a cut for his department’s budget. Before being adjusted for inflation, his is the only department that would get a cut if the request were approved by Congress. The secretary appears to be under the impression that border security is not a part of homeland security.
With the crisis at the border, Americans are right to hold someone accountable. The most immediate antagonist is Mayorkas. He has failed miserably at his job. His Yelp review would be a 0.5 star and the United States needs 4.0 stars and nothing less. The American taxpayer and moms who lost children to fentanyl overdoses deserve better.
Are you getting ready for retirement? Invest in a portfolio with a high, fixed rate of return, that’s not correlated to the stock market. Visit investyrefy.com or call CALL 888-YREFY-24. Make sure you tell our friends at Yrefy that Chuck and Sam sent you.