Why Should Mayorkas Be Impeached?

The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday concerns impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and other Cabinet members. Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives are urging impeachment of Mayorkas, and Democrats are trying to protect Mayorkas. Steve Bradbury of The Heritage Foundation published an article in The Daily Signal outlining “overwhelming” grounds for impeaching Mayorkas. 

Bradbury suggested a question that each House member should ask about Mayorkas: “Is his central role in precipitating our unprecedented immigration disaster and destroying the security and well-being of the American people tolerable and consistent with the rule of law?” Then he answered his own question with “It’s not. The grounds for impeaching Mayorkas are overwhelming.” Then he explained his reasoning.

What’s at issue in this impeachment is not just a policy dispute over how best to enforce the nation’s immigration laws. Mayorkas is actively nullifying and undermining those laws. It’s no excuse for Mayorkas to say he’s just following President Joe Biden’s orders. And it can’t be the case that the House’s only proper option in the face of the current lawlessness is to impeach the president.

Biden and his White House advisers never could carry out this administration’s disastrous open-border agenda on their own. Biden can do it only through the active agency of a homeland security secretary who’s willing to abuse the powers of his department and violate the laws he’s sworn to uphold.

As a Senate-confirmed officer of the government, Mayorkas has a duty to follow the law faithfully; he should refuse to carry out directives that are inconsistent with the law, or else resign from office.

We are a nation of laws, and our republican government cannot function if the civil officers of the government are not held to account when they act in contravention of the law, even when they do so at the behest of the president.

Some may think that Biden will just continue with his current agenda notwithstanding impeachment, and simply put another willing lackey in place if Mayorkas were to be removed from office. But the president’s ability to do so would be much more constrained and subject to greater and more intense scrutiny by Congress and the public if the articles of impeachment are approved.

Bradbury admitted that border security has never “been perfect.” In fact, “previous secretaries of the Department of Homeland Security have exercised some degree of enforcement discretion, including regarding parole and mandatory detention.” However, it is obvious the Mayorkas “crossed the line of permissible discretion into flagrant nullification and violation of the law.”

Bradbury insisted that the House of Representatives has a constitutional role “to declare that Mayorkas has gone far beyond what is tolerable and consistent with the duties and privileges of his office.”

I feel certain that I am not the only person who has this belief, but I think that Mayorkas deserves a smack down for his arrogance and smirks when being questioned by congressional members. He seems to believe that he can do whatever he chooses to do.