[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
VOICES FOR THE VICTIMS: THE HEARTBREAKING
REALITY OF THE MAYORKAS BORDER CRISIS
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
JANUARY 18, 2024
__________
Serial No. 118-50
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
57-220 PDF WASHINGTON : 2024
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
Mark E. Green, MD, Tennessee, Chairman
Michael T. McCaul, Texas Bennie G. Thompson, Mississippi,
Clay Higgins, Louisiana Ranking Member
Michael Guest, Mississippi Sheila Jackson Lee, Texas
Dan Bishop, North Carolina Donald M. Payne, Jr., New Jersey
Carlos A. Gimenez, Florida Eric Swalwell, California
August Pfluger, Texas J. Luis Correa, California
Andrew R. Garbarino, New York Troy A. Carter, Louisiana
Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia Shri Thanedar, Michigan
Tony Gonzales, Texas Seth Magaziner, Rhode Island
Nick LaLota, New York Glenn Ivey, Maryland
Mike Ezell, Mississippi Daniel S. Goldman, New York
Anthony D'Esposito, New York Robert Garcia, California
Laurel M. Lee, Florida Delia C. Ramirez, Illinois
Morgan Luttrell, Texas Robert Menendez, New Jersey
Dale W. Strong, Alabama Yvette D. Clarke, New York
Josh Brecheen, Oklahoma Dina Titus, Nevada
Elijah Crane, Arizona
Stephen Siao, Staff Director
Hope Goins, Minority Staff Director
Sean Corcoran, Chief Clerk
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Statements
Honorable Mark E. Green, a Representative in Congress From the
State of Tennessee, and Chairman, Committee on Homeland
Security:
Oral Statement................................................. 1
Prepared Statement............................................. 7
Honorable Bennie G. Thompson, a Representative in Congress From
the State of Mississippi, and Ranking Member, Committee on
Homeland Security:
Oral Statement................................................. 9
Prepared Statement............................................. 18
Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee, a Representative in Congress From
the State of Texas:
Prepared Statement............................................. 20
Witnesses
Ms. Tammy Nobles, Private Citizen:
Oral Statement................................................. 23
Prepared Statement............................................. 24
Ms. Josephine Dunn, Private Citizen:
Oral Statement................................................. 25
Prepared Statement............................................. 26
Ms. Deborah N. Pearlstein, Director, Program in Law and Public
Policy and Charles and Marie Robertson Visiting Professor in
Law and Public Affairs, Princeton University:
Oral Statement................................................. 31
Prepared Statement............................................. 32
For the Record
Honorable Mark E. Green, a Representative in Congress From the
State of Tennessee, and Chairman, Committee on Homeland
Security:
Statement of Sheriff Mark Dannels.............................. 4
Letters to Secretary Mayorkas.................................. 6
Honorable Bennie G. Thompson, a Representative in Congress From
the State of Mississippi, and Ranking Member, Committee on
Homeland Security:
Article, January 17, 2024, The Hill............................ 10
Letter From Minority Members................................... 15
Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee, a Representative in Congress From
the State of Texas:
Article, May 15, 2023, Foreign Affairs......................... 47
Article, 17th September 2023, BBC News......................... 51
Hon. Eric Swalwell, a Representative in Congress From the State
of California:
Previous Witness Statements of Sheriff Mark Dannels............ 78
Hon. Troy A. Carter, a Representative in Congress From the State
of Louisiana:
Article, Mar 2, 2023, Forbes................................... 54
Hon. Seth Magaziner, a Representative in Congress From the State
of Rhode Island:
Letter From Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs
Zephranie Buetow............................................. 17
Hon. Robert Garcia, a Representative in Congress From the State
of California:
Transcript, October 29, 2020, All Things Considered............ 87
Hon. Delia C. Ramirez, a Representative in Congress From the
State of Illinois:
Article, Jan. 14, 2024, New York Times......................... 67
Article, May 19, 2023, New York Times.......................... 68
Appendix
Honorable Mark E. Green, a Representative in Congress From the
State of Tennessee, and Chairman, Committee on Homeland
Security:
Letters From DHS............................................... 111
Honorable Bennie G. Thompson, a Representative in Congress From
the State of Mississippi, and Ranking Member, Committee on
Homeland Security:
Closing Statement.............................................. 117
VOICES FOR THE VICTIMS: THE HEART-
BREAKING REALITY OF THE MAYORKAS
BORDER CRISIS
----------
Thursday, January 18, 2024
U.S. House of Representatives,
Committee on Homeland Security,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:38 a.m., in
Room 310, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. Mark Green
[Chairman of the committee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Green, McCaul, Higgins, Guest,
Bishop, Gimenez, Pfluger, Garbarino, Greene, Gonzales, Ezell,
D'Esposito, Lee, Luttrell, Strong, Brecheen, Crane, Thompson,
Jackson Lee, Swalwell, Carter, Correa, Thanedar, Magaziner,
Ivey, Goldman, Garcia, Ramirez, Menendez, Clarke, and Titus.
Chairman Green. The Committee on Homeland Security will
come to order. Without objection, the Chair may declare the
committee in recess at any point.
The purpose of this hearing is to receive testimony on
President Biden and Secretary Mayorkas' open border policies
and how these failed policies have had a profound and
devastating impact throughout our country. This is the second
hearing in this committee's impeachment proceedings regarding
Secretary Mayorkas. I now recognize myself for an opening
statement.
Last week, this committee opened impeachment proceedings
against Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro
Mayorkas. This is not a policy difference. The truth is
Secretary Mayorkas has disregarded court orders, laws passed by
the U.S. Congress, and has lied to the American people. Who
wants a Secretary that can just disregard the fundamental
pillars of the Constitution? We can't tolerate that, whether
they are a Republican or a Democrat.
That is what we got out of our hearing last week. Today we
are here to examine the impact of those actions on the American
people and launch into the substance and human cost of
Secretary Mayorkas' open border policies.
As a result of the reckless actions by Secretary Mayorkas,
no American is safe. There is a fentanyl epidemic sweeping this
Nation. Roughly 150,000 Americans died from fentanyl poisoning
in 2021 and 2022. That is more than the number of U.S. combat
deaths in World War I and the Vietnam War combined. Fentanyl is
ripping apart our families and destroying our communities. Over
50 percent of this poison is being smuggled from Mexico into
Arizona before it is dispersed throughout the United States.
The Grand Canyon State is on the front lines of this crisis,
which is why we have had testimony by people who have related
the impacts on that State.
Now, you will hear many of my colleagues on the left claim
that fentanyl is a ports of entry problem. But in reality, just
last year, the Border Patrol intercepted enough fentanyl
between the ports of entry to kill every single American. That
is just what we have caught. We have no idea how much more
fentanyl was brought in by the nearly 1.8 million known
gotaways, not to mention the unknown gotaways.
Border officials have told this committee in testimony that
only 5 to 10 percent of the fentanyl coming across the border
is actually seized. By redirecting so many Border Patrol agents
from patrolling the border to assist with the processing and
release of illegal aliens, Secretary Mayorkas has made it far
easier to smuggle fentanyl across the Southwest Border.
Because of Secretary Mayorkas' border crisis, American
cities and neighborhoods are less safe. Secretary Mayorkas'
refusal to enforce the law, which requires him to detain and
remove illegal aliens, has tragically increased crime and
endangered public safety across the country.
Since fiscal year 2021, the Border Patrol arrested more
than 41,000 aliens with criminal convictions, including more
than 15,000 in fiscal year 2023. That is up from just a little
over 4,200 in fiscal year 2019. Total convictions for assault,
battery, and domestic violence among illegal aliens apprehended
in fiscal year 2023 exceeded 1,200, compared to 299 in fiscal
year 2019. These statistics do not reflect the illegal aliens
with criminal records who have slipped through the system
because agents just don't have enough time or information to
vet them.
Additionally, DHS has no way to determine if an alien has a
criminal history in his home country unless that country
reports the information to the U.S. Government or the alien
self-reports. Therefore, DHS is mainly only screening aliens at
the border to determine if they have previously committed a
crime in the United States. Because many of these aliens are
coming to the United States for the first time, DHS has no idea
whether they have a criminal history or not.
On top of rushing the vetting process, Secretary Mayorkas
is hamstringing ICE, making it easier for illegal aliens who
commit crimes in the United States to stay here. Despite his
supposed pledge to focus on removing threats to public safety,
ICE is arresting fewer criminal illegal aliens than previous
administrations. In fiscal year 2019, out of more than 143
administrative arrests, 86 percent were of criminal aliens. In
fiscal year 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, it was 90
percent. Last fiscal year, a mere 43 percent.
The consequences of this influx of criminal aliens is
simply devastating. Again, as a result, no American is safe.
Illegal aliens arriving in major cities like New York and
Chicago are committing assault, theft, and even more heinous
crimes. In one case, Daniel Hernandez Martinez, who arrived in
New York in June 2023, has since committed at least 14 crimes,
leading to 6 arrests, including the day after he arrived in New
York City. In one instance, he ``grabbed a stranger by the
hair, dragged her across the floor, and kicked her.''
Crimes stemming from illegal migrants are also happening in
small towns across America. In May 2023, a Honduran national
was charged with raping a teenage girl in a restaurant bathroom
in Prattville, Alabama. He had a prior criminal record in
Honduras when apprehended, crossing into Texas illegally in
November 2021, but he was released into the interior anyway.
As we learned in last week's hearing, as many as 85 percent
of illegal aliens are currently being released on Secretary
Mayorkas' watch. The Secretary himself admitted this during a
trip to Eagle Pass just last week.
How could we forget the story of the Tambunga family, Elisa
Tambunga and her father and sister, who sat across from us in
this very hearing room. Elisa lost her little 7-year-old Emilia
and her grandmother Maria in a car crash caused by a human
smuggler. We will sadly hear similar stories today.
These crimes were wholly preventable. Yet Secretary
Mayorkas' policies enabled these criminals to enter our country
and destroy these families' lives. It is despicable.
While many of my Democrat colleagues likely feel the same
sympathy for you and your family that I do, I would like to ask
them to please turn that sympathy into action. It is
hypocritical to come up here, offer your thoughts and prayers,
and then leave, continuing to double down on the policies that
allow criminals and fentanyl into our country. The people
suffering from this border crisis don't need platitudes. They
need an end to these illegal policies and to see the man
responsible for implementing them held to account. That's what
Republicans are doing here today.
Migrants are also suffering as a result of Secretary
Mayorkas' actions. On Secretary Mayorkas' watch, a record
number of migrants have been found dead on U.S. soil. Since the
start of fiscal year 2022, CBP no longer even publicly reports
the number, but Dr. Corinne Stern, the medical examiner in Webb
County, Texas, said in August 2022, and I quote, ``I'm seeing
an extreme increase in the number of border crossing deaths
compared to other years. This is my busiest year in my career
ever.''
Many of those who survive the journey have horror stories
as well. Sadly, numerous migrants suffer sexual abuse and
assault along the way. Then San Diego Sector Chief Patrol Agent
Aaron Heitke told our committee in May, and I quote, ``It's
very common that female migrants are raped during the process.
Most of them believe it's just part of the payment as they go
up.''
This hearing is about the human cost of Secretary Mayorkas'
egregious misconduct and failure to fulfill his oath of office.
The Framers of our Constitution were clear that the
Executive branch officials were expected to follow their duty
and enforce the laws of this country, and if they willfully
failed to do so, they should no longer hold office. That is why
we are here today.
I look forward to hearing from our witnesses and letting
them tell their stories about how this crisis has impacted
them. Unfortunately, one of our witnesses, Sheriff Dannels, was
not able to make it at the last minute, but we look forward to
hearing from him at a future hearing or on a future border
trip. With his permission, I would ask unanimous consent to
submit his testimony for the record. Without objection, so
ordered.
[The prepared statement of Sheriff Dannels follows:]
Prepared Statement of Mark Dannels
January 18, 2024
Good afternoon Chairman (Mark) Green, Ranking Member (Bennie)
Thompson and the Honorable Members of both subcommittees. On behalf the
citizens of Cochise County and the State of Arizona, and my fellow
sheriffs, thank you for having me.
I have served our border communities for 40 years and prior to
that, as a member of our military serving in the U.S. Army stationed at
Fort Huachuca located within Cochise County. I have always been a
genuine believer in my oath of office to protect my country, and now my
county as the duly-elected sheriff for the past 12 years. I am the
past-president of the Arizona Sheriffs Association, chair of the
National Sheriffs Association Border Security, the Executive Board for
Western States Sheriffs and past leadership positions with the
Southwest Border Sheriffs.
All these associations share 3 objectives: Public Safety, National
Security, and Humanitarian.
In my submitted brief,* I have shared with you all an overview of
Cochise County and the history of our border. I have personally
experienced the good, the bad, and the ugly of being a border county.
My office has always addressed border-related crimes, smuggling of both
illicit drugs, humans, weapons, and cash by our transnational
organizations i.e. criminal cartels.
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* Attachments have been retained in committee files.
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I am proud of our relationships with all our law enforcement
partners that serve our communities.
To begin, I want to ``thank'' our Customs & Border Patrol officers
and agents who have worked tirelessly and diligently to protect this
great Nation. I want to ``thank'' our Governors; Ducey and Hobbs, and
our State congressional members for all their support. The men and
women of the Cochise County Sheriffs Office for their dedication and
commitment in keeping our communities safe. To all my fellow sheriffs
that stand united for the Rule of Law in the protection of their
communities. And, finally, I want to ``thank'' my citizens for their
patience and support in a time of crisis and disarray.
To best understand my presentation is to understand where we were
over 3 years ago. My county was one on the safest border counties based
on our collective governmental efforts, prioritization, messaging and
yes, enforcement efforts supported by the Rule of Law.
the direct impact to my county/office
My citizens and law enforcement address mostly got-aways ``Fight &
Flight'' in my county versus those giving up.
100 percent camouflaged migrants being illegally smuggled by the
cartels, price tag per UDA begins at $7,000 and up.
These smugglers include juveniles being recruited via social media
by the criminal cartels.
Border-related booking (detention) costs over the last 24 months is
$9.4 million, absorbed by my local and State taxpayers.
border-related crime at an all-time high
Death/murder investigations, illicit drug poisonings, aggravated
acts against my citizens, failure to yields, search and rescue/
recovery, and yes, assaults against law enforcement officials.
My deputies/law enforcement continue to be placed in life-
threatening scenarios as the cartels shows no regard for my citizens
and/or those that wear a badge.
Agents, troopers, deputies, and officers are addressing dangerous
scenarios/criminals as a direct result of an ``open border'' exploited
by these criminal cartels for violence, fear, and greed.
cochise county sheriff's office detention bookings related to border
In calendar years 2022/2023: 2,884 suspects booked into my jail for
border-related crimes, 566 smugglers (State law violation), 414 failure
to yields, 154 non-citizens, $9.4 million cost to local/State.
Fentanyl continues to poison/kill Americans at an alarming rate
leaving families and communities devasted. Arizona efforts by law
enforcement are remarkable, but the war on drugs must be a priority
topic and not deserted by political rhetoric. Arizona fentanyl seizures
accounts for 51 percent of all the fentanyl seized in the country. In
Federal fiscal year 2022 Arizona seized over 60 million Fentanyl pills.
The 4 Arizona border counties seized 35 million Fentanyl pills with an
anticipated increase for 2023 Federal fiscal year.
In closing, my fellow sheriffs and I have tried to partner with
this administration to include the President of the United States with
high hopes to share a collective message, collective action plan,
support the rule of law, prioritize our Southern Border, and provide
updates reference community impacts and concerns with little to no
success.
By allowing our border security mission and immigration laws to be
discretionary, these criminal cartels continue to be the true winners,
their exploitation of mankind is simply ``modern day slavery'';
allowing thousands of pounds of illicit drugs into our country that
continue to erode the core values of families, schools, and
subsequently killing Americans on an average of 290 every day is
completely unacceptable at any level. Experiencing migrant deaths
without a reasonable process while Members of our U.S. Congress and
this administration intentionally avoids reality is gross negligence.
Our voice of reason has been buried during what I call an
``intellectual avoidance'' by this administration and yes, Members of
U.S. Congress. Communities have been neglected and abandoned relying on
our own local and State resources to address a border that is in crisis
mode.
Our Southern Border, against all public well-designed statements
out of Washington, DC is in the worst shape I have ever seen it. When
one looks at public safety, national security, and humanitarian, our
Southern Border is the largest crime scene in the country.
The morale of agents is extremely low, and the collective
frustration is very high amongst law enforcement at all levels and most
important, our citizens.
I am a true believer that Customs and Border Patrol are the experts
of border security while sheriffs and police chiefs are the experts of
community: together, this is a recipe of success for all communities!
I will leave you with this final statement: we all serve the
priorities of Americans based on our shared oaths of office to keep
them safe, enhance their quality of life, and support the rule of law
absent political affiliation or the concern of reelection; I ask each
one of you to reflect on this statement as you make your next decision
to vote.
Once again, I thank this committee for the invite and opportunity
and now, stand ready to answer any questions by Members.
Chairman Green. Last, I would like to point out that I have
invited Secretary Mayorkas on multiple occasions to testify on
the border crisis, including this hearing today. I am
disappointed that he has chosen not to testify. Instead, he
plays games and cat-and-mouse, telling the media he wants to
cooperate with the committee on finding a time to testify, but
then refuses to work with the committee staff or offer any
dates or times to which he can testify. Despite this behavior,
and in lieu of his in-person testimony, I have invited him to
submit testimony for the record, and I sincerely hope that he
takes advantage of that offer.
I would like to ask unanimous consent for my letters
inviting Secretary Mayorkas for testimony dated August 16,
September 14, January 5, and January 7 to be entered into the
record. Without objection, so ordered.
[The information follows:]
Letters Submitted by Chairman Mark E. Green
August 16, 2023
The Honorable Alejandro Mayorkas.
Secretary, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Washington, DC 20528.
Dear Secretary Mayorkas: Throughout the 118th Congress, the
Committee on Homeland Security (Committee), as the House of
Representatives' primary committee of jurisdiction for the Department
of Homeland Security (Department), prioritized and will continue
oversight of the Department and the enforcement policies responsible
for an unprecedented border security crisis. As the Department's
Secretary, your testimony will significantly benefit the Committee's
oversight and provide the American public improved transparency and
accountability. Therefore, the Committee invites you to testify at an
agreeable date and time during the week of October 23, 2023.
The scope of the hearing will primarily focus on border security
with an emphasis on examining the actions and policies implemented
since January 2021 and their impacts on the border and throughout the
interior of the country.
Please contact the Committee on Homeland Security Majority Staff at
(202) 226-8417 with any questions or to confirm your attendance.
The Committee sincerely hopes that you accept this invitation to
testify.
Sincerely,
Mark E. Green, M.D.,
Chairman, Committee on Homeland Security.
______
September 18, 2023.
The Honorable Alejandro Mayorkas,
Secretary, U.S. Department of Homeland Security Washington, DC, 20528.
Dear Secretary Mayorkas: I am in receipt of your response to my
August 16th letter that requested you to appear before the Committee on
Homeland Security to testify on the unprecedented border security
crisis. As you know, I requested your testimony at a mutually agreeable
time during the week of October 23, 2023, as part of our on-going
oversight work. The Committee on Homeland Security is the House of
Representatives' primary committee of jurisdiction over the Department
of Homeland Security.
Your response seems to request a deferral of your testimony to the
Committee's annual Worldwide Threats hearing. As is the tradition of
this Committee, I intend to schedule the Worldwide Threats hearing this
fall, separate from the hearing I describe in my August 16th letter.
Just last week, the Department released its Annual Homeland Threat
Assessment stating that the Department `` . . . continues to identify a
high risk of foreign and domestic terrorism in 2024[.]'' The assessment
describes a `` . . . diverse and dynamic threat environment.'' The
dynamic and diverse nature of the threats we face is why I intend for
the Worldwide Threats hearing to cover the wide range of threats,
including threats to our infrastructure, cybersecurity, economic
security, aviation security, faith-based communities, as well as our
very way of life. Testimony from DHS, the FBI, and NCTC always give the
Committee a wide breadth of topics to explore and to question witnesses
about. I also anticipate that border security will be an inevitable
point of discussion in that hearing.
Your letter states that ``[b]order security is an essential aspect
of DHS's core mission . . . ''. I could not agree more. However,
because of the unprecedented crisis at the border, your testimony on
border security, at a hearing focused solely on border security, is
essential for the Committee to fulfill its oversight obligations to the
crisis by receiving answers to the many questions we have that are
specific to the Department.
The Committee takes its oversight responsibilities very seriously
and would appreciate your participation and insight in order to
understand the entirety of the dynamic threat environment you mention
in your report. I therefore request that you make yourself available
for testimony at both hearings.
I look forward to and request your response by September 25, 2023.
Sincerely,
Mark E. Green, M.D.
Chairman.
______
January 5, 2024.
The Honorable Alejandro Mayorkas,
Secretary, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Washington, DC 20528.
Dear Secretary Mayorkas: I am in receipt of your responses to my
August 16, 2023 and September 18, 2023 letters, declining to appear
before the Committee on Homeland Security (Committee) to testify
exclusively on the unprecedented border security crisis. I am writing
again to reiterate my request.
The Committee recently completed its nearly year-long investigation
into the border crisis. As the Department's Secretary, your testimony
is vital to the Committee's oversight and to providing the American
public with complete transparency and accountability.
Also, as you are aware, articles for your impeachment were filed in
the House of Representatives and were referred to the Committee in
November. Accordingly, we have initiated impeachment proceedings, of
which your testimony will be a part.
As the House of Representatives' primary committee of jurisdiction
for the Department, the Committee takes its responsibilities very
seriously. I request your participation in an afternoon hearing on
January 18, 2024.
I request and look forward to your response by January 10, 2024.
Sincerely,
Mark E. Green, M.D.,
Chairman.
______
January 17, 2024.
The Honorable Alejandro Mayorkas,
Secretary, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Washington, DC, 20528.
Dear Secretary Mayorkas: I am in receipt of your response to my
letter requesting your appearance before the Committee on Homeland
Security to testify at our January 18th hearing. I was looking forward
to your in-person testimony and am disappointed that you declined to
appear.
As stated in earlier letters to you, your perspective on the crisis
at the border and actions you have taken as secretary are valuable for
the Members of the Committee and the American public to hear.
Regretfully, every invitation for almost half a year we extended to you
to testify focused specifically on the border crisis has been rejected
or subject to endless delay tactics. Since you continue to decline to
come in person, I invite you to submit written testimony for the
January 18th hearing record, so that our Committee Members may hear
from you directly.
If you accept my invitation, please submit your testimony to the
Committee's chief clerk, Sean Corcoran, at
[email protected]. The official hearing record will be held
open for 10 days following the conclusion of the hearing.
The Committee sincerely hopes that you will accept this invitation.
Sincerely,
Mark E. Green, M.D.,
Chairman, Committee on Homeland Security.
[The statement of Chairman Green follows:]
Statement of Chairman Mark Green
January 18, 2024
intro
Last week, this committee opened impeachment proceedings against
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
This is not a policy difference. The truth is that Secretary
Mayorkas has disregarded court orders, laws passed by Congress, and has
lied to the American people. Who wants a Secretary that can just
disregard the fundamental pillars of the Constitution?
We cannot tolerate that, whether they are a Republican or Democrat.
That's what we got out of our hearing last week.
Today, we are here to examine the impacts of those actions on the
American people and launch into the substance and human cost of
Secretary Mayorkas' open-border policies.
As a result of the reckless actions by Secretary Mayorkas, no
American is safe.
fentanyl
There is a fentanyl epidemic sweeping this Nation. Roughly 150,000
Americans died from fentanyl poisoning in 2021 & 2022. That is more
than the number of U.S. combatant deaths in World War I and the Vietnam
War combined.
Fentanyl is ripping apart our families and destroying our
communities. Over 50 percent of this poison is being smuggled from
Mexico into Arizona before it's dispersed throughout the United States.
The Grand Canyon State is on the front lines of this crisis, which is
why we have a witness and testimony from Arizona today.
You'll hear many of my colleagues on the Left claim that fentanyl
is a ``ports of entry'' problem, but in reality, just last year, the
Border Patrol intercepted enough fentanyl between the ports of entry to
kill every single American. And that's just what we caught. We have no
idea how much more fentanyl was brought in by the nearly 1.8 million
known gotaways, not to mention the unknown gotaways.
Border officials have told this committee that only 5-10 percent of
fentanyl coming across the border is seized.
By redirecting so many Border Patrol agents from patrolling the
borders to assist with the processing and release of illegal aliens,
Secretary Mayorkas has made it far easier to smuggle fentanyl across
the Southwest Border.
Because of Secretary Mayorkas' border crisis, American cities and
neighborhoods are less safe.
crime and public safety
Secretary Mayorkas' refusal to enforce the law, which requires him
to detain and remove illegal aliens, has tragically increased crime and
endangered public safety across the country.
Since fiscal year 2021, the Border Patrol arrested more than 41,000
aliens with criminal convictions, including more than 15,000 in fiscal
year 2023. That's up from just a little over 4,200 in fiscal year 2019.
Total convictions for assault, battery, and domestic violence among
illegal aliens apprehended in fiscal year 2023 exceeded 1,200, compared
to 299 in fiscal year 2019.
These statistics do not reflect the illegal aliens with criminal
records who have slipped through the system because agents don't have
enough time or information to vet them. Additionally, DHS has no way to
determine if an alien has a criminal history in his home country unless
that country reports the information to the U.S. Government or the
alien self-reports. Therefore, DHS is mainly only screening aliens at
the border to determine if they have previously committed a crime in
the United States, and because many of these aliens are coming to the
United States for the first time, DHS has no idea whether they have
criminal histories or not.
On top of rushing the vetting process, Secretary Mayorkas is
hamstringing ICE, making it easier for illegal aliens who commit crimes
in the United States to stay here. Despite his supposed pledge to focus
on removing threats to public safety, ICE is arresting fewer criminal
illegal aliens than previous administrations. In fiscal year 2019, out
of more than 143,000 administrative arrests, 86 percent were of
criminal aliens. In fiscal year 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, it
was 90 percent. Last fiscal year? A mere 43 percent.
The consequences of this influx of criminals are simply
devastating.
as a result, no american is safe
Illegal aliens arriving in major cities like New York and Chicago
are committing assault, theft, and even more heinous crimes. In one
case, Daniel Hernandez Martinez, who arrived in New York in June 2023,
has since committed at least 14 crimes leading to 6 arrests, including
the day after he arrived in the city. In one instance, he ``grabbed a
stranger by the hair, dragged her across the floor and kicked her''.
Crimes stemming from illegal migrants are also happening in small towns
across America.
In May 2023, a Honduran national was charged with raping a teenage
girl in a restaurant bathroom in Prattville, Alabama. He had a prior
criminal record in Honduras when apprehended crossing into Texas
illegally in November 2021, but was released into the interior.
As we learned in last week's hearing, as many as 85 percent of
illegal aliens are currently being released on Secretary Mayorkas'
watch. The Secretary himself admitted this during a trip to Eagle Pass
just last week.
And how could we forget the story of the Tambunga family--Elisa
Tambunga and her father and sister who sat across from us in this very
hearing room. Elisa lost her little 7-year-old Emilia and her
grandmother Maria, in a car crash caused by a human smuggler. We will
sadly hear similar stories today.
These crimes were wholly preventable. Yet Secretary Mayorkas'
policies enabled these criminals to enter our country and destroy these
families--despicable.
While many of my Democrat colleagues likely feel the same sympathy
for you and your family that I do, I'd like to ask them to please turn
that sympathy into action. It is hypocritical to come up here, offer
your ``thoughts and prayers'' and then leave, continuing to double-down
on the policies that allow criminals and fentanyl into our country. The
people suffering from this border crisis don't need platitudes, they
need an end to these illegal policies and to see the man responsible
for implementing them held to account. And that's what Republicans are
doing here today.
Migrants are also suffering as a result of Secretary Mayorkas'
actions.
On Secretary Mayorkas' watch, a record number of migrants have been
found dead on U.S. soil. Since the start of fiscal year 2022, CBP no
longer even publicly reports the number, but Dr. Corrine Stem, the
medical examiner in Webb County, Texas, said in August 2022, ``I'm
seeing an extreme increase in the number of border crossing deaths
compared to other years. This is my busiest year in my career ever''.
Many of those who survive the journey have horror stories. Sadly,
numerous migrants suffer sexual abuse and assault along the way. Then-
San Diego Sector Chief Patrol Agent Aaron Heitke told our committee in
May, ``It's very common that female migrants are raped during the
process . . . Most of them believe it's just part of the payment as
they go up''.
This hearing is about the human costs of Secretary Mayorkas'
egregious misconduct and failure to fulfill his oath of office.
The Framers of our Constitution were clear that Executive branch
officials were expected to follow their duty to enforce the laws of
this country, and, if they willfully failed to do so, they should no
longer hold their office.
That is why we're here today.
I look forward to hearing from our witnesses and letting them tell
their stories about how this crisis has impacted them.
Unfortunately, one of our witnesses, Sheriff Dannels, was not able
to make it at the last minute. We look forward to hearing from him at a
future hearing or on a future border trip. With his permission, I would
ask unanimous consent to submit his testimony for the record.
Last, I would like to point out that I have invited Secretary
Mayorkas on multiple occasions to testify on the border crisis--
including this hearing today.
I am disappointed that he has chosen not to testify. Instead, he
plays games of cat-and-mouse, telling the media he wants to cooperate
with the committee on finding a time to testify, but then refuses to
work with committee staff or offer any dates or times. in which to
testify. Despite this behavior, and in lieu of his in-person testimony,
I have invited him to submit testimony for the record, and I sincerely
hope he takes advantage of that offer.
I would like to ask unanimous consent for my letters inviting
Secretary Mayorkas for testimony, dated August 16, September 14,
January 5, and January 17, to be entered into the record.
Chairman Green. I now recognize the Ranking Member, the
gentleman from Mississippi, Mr. Thompson, for his opening
statement.
Mr. Thompson. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Good
morning.
Before we begin today's hearing, I want to address
misinformation my Republican colleagues are spreading, falsely
alleging that Secretary Mayorkas is refusing to testify before
this committee. Let me set the record straight. Secretary
Mayorkas has testified before Congress more than any other
Cabinet Secretary. He has appeared before this committee twice
in the last year, including just 2 months ago when he testified
for several hours about border security.
His willingness to work with the committee has been a
welcome change from the Trump administration, whose officials
consistently refused to comply with Congressional oversight.
They ignored virtually every oversight letter and even defied a
subpoena for their so-called Acting Secretary to appear before
the committee.
Secretary Mayorkas, however, has been forthright in dealing
with Congress. In response to the Chairman's request to testify
at today's hearing on January 11, 2024, the Secretary sent a
letter agreeing to make himself available to testify at a
future mutually agreed-upon date. However, the Chairman has
refused to accept. Instead, Republicans sent angry letters and
tweets accusing the Secretary of refusing to testify, knowing
full well he said he would appear. Republicans are acting in
bad faith.
Unfortunately, that is nothing new. Months ago, Chairman
Green promised donors at a campaign event that he would bring
an impeachment case against Secretary of Homeland Security
Alejandro Mayorkas. He told his contributors to, ``Get the
popcorn,'' and promised, ``it's going to be fun.'' Before the
committee had even begun its inquiry, Republicans had
predetermined the outcome.
But why did Republicans invite the Secretary to testify,
only to refuse his offer to appear? The answer to that question
appeared in The Hill newspaper last night.
Mr. Chair, I asked unanimous consent to include in the
record this article from The Hill, describing how Republicans
had set the date for the markup of Articles of Impeachment
before holding the first hearing on this subject.
Chairman Green. Without objection, so ordered.
[The information follows:]
Article Submitted by Ranking Member Bennie G. Thompson
gop memo shows plans for mayorkas impeachment markup on jan. 31
By Rebecca Beitsch--01/17/24 6:47 PM ET, The Hill
An internal Republican memo shows the House Homeland Security
Committee decided last week it would mark up an impeachment resolution
for Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas at the end of the
month.
The memo, obtained by The Hill, came the same day that the
committee kicked off its series of impeachment hearings--and amid
complaints from Democrats the proceedings have been rushed to back a
predetermined conclusion.
It appears to show Republicans have committed to a timeline with
little flexibility to accommodate additional promised hearings or
testimony from Mayorkas himself.
The plans outlined in the memo--which Republicans shared
inadvertently--track with a pledge by Chair Mark Green (R-Tenn.) to
swiftly consider a resolution to boot Mayorkas from his job.
But asked about its contents, Green said he was not putting any
timeline out and that he would not ``corroborate a memo.''
``I'm not confirming or denying any dates or times,'' Green told
The Hill.
His colleague on the panel, however, backed the timeline of the
memo. Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) told reporters he expected the
articles of impeachment to drop Jan. 31.
The memo appears to be a document to prepare Green for a Jan. 11
meeting, prompting him to remind other GOP committee members about a
Jan. 18 meeting to ``strategize for the impeachment articles.''
``We have scheduled the markup for impeachment articles at 10
o'clock AM ET on Wednesday, January 31, 2024,'' the memo says under a
section labeled as ``announcements.''
The memo comes amid a broader battle over whether Mayorkas--who has
said he is willing to appear before the panel--will get chance to
testify in the hearings.
While in late December, Green told Fox News they would hold ``three
or four hearings . . . and then we will do a proceeding in January,''
the second hearing in the series slated for Thursday could be their
last.
The House is still set to take a weeklong recess next week,
returning in the final days of January and leaving just 1 day for any
other committee activity ahead of a mark up.
Green had asked Mayorkas 2 weeks in advance to appear at Thursday's
hearing, but the secretary had a scheduling conflict while hosting a
delegation from Mexico to discuss border issues, asking to instead find
another date.
The memo was drafted the day before the panel heard from Mayorkas
that he would be unable to meet on Jan. 18.
Green earlier Wednesday fired off a letter saying that if Mayorkas
could not make tomorrow's hearing, he could submit written testimony
instead.
Rep. Bennie Thompson (Miss.), the top Democrat on the panel, said
the little lead time in scheduling the hearing with Mayorkas was a
contrast with usual efforts to schedule cabinet officials months in
advance.
``You notified the guy last week, who, you know, has the third-
largest agency in government that `We want you to testify next week.
Oh, and by the way, we want you to be on the second panel,' '' Thompson
said.
The committee still plans to hear from a sheriff and parents who
lost children to gang violence and fentanyl.
Green has pointed to previous invitations in August and September
for Mayorkas to testify that were not accepted, though the secretary
has appeared before the panel twice in the last year.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said the disagreement
over setting a date amounted to a ``rush to impeach'' on Green's part.
``This is just the latest example of Committee Republicans' sham
process. It's abundantly clear that they are not interested in hearing
from Secretary Mayorkas since it doesn't fit into their bad-faith,
predetermined and unconstitutional rush to impeach him. Last week, the
Secretary offered to testify publicly before the Committee; in the time
since, the Committee failed to respond to DHS to find a mutually
agreeable date,'' DHS spokesperson Mia Ehrenberg said in a statement.
``Instead, they provided this offer of written testimony to the
media before any outreach to the Department. [Homeland Security
Committee] Republicans have yet again demonstrated their preference for
playing politics rather than work together to address the serious
issues at the border.''
Green wouldn't tell The Hill Wednesday whether he would shift the
schedule to accommodate Mayorkas.
``I said this all along, but I would change my timeline if a reason
to do so came up,'' he said.
``Mayorkas's passive aggressiveness about trying to schedule us is
a smokescreen. That's all it is. And we're just not going to play that
game. We've been after him to come since August. And he keeps saying
no,'' Green said.
``So we're not playing the game anymore.''
Mr. Thompson. According to an internal Republican memo
dated January 10, 2024, Republicans had already scheduled a
committee vote to impeach the Secretary prior to holding a
single impeachment hearing. Just as we have said all along, the
outcome of Republicans' so-called impeachment investigation has
been predetermined from the start.
The Chairman promised to follow the facts, but Republicans
never really intended to do so. They are hurrying to adhere to
an artificial time line, agreed in a backroom deal between
Republican leadership, who are holding on by a thread and its
most extreme MAGA members. This isn't a real impeachment. It is
a MAGA spectacle paid for by American tax dollars for
Republican political gain.
But through it all, Secretary Mayorkas remained committed
to doing his job, the Department of Homeland Security's
mission, and the men and women who serve with him at DHS. The
Secretary is also committed to work diligently on a bipartisan
basis to secure necessary funding for border security and to
prepare the Department for a possible shutdown. I wish my
Republican colleagues would engage the Secretary to provide the
Department the funding it needs, but they have refused.
I look forward to continuing to work with Secretary
Mayorkas on critical homeland security issues facing the
country and commend him for his unwavering commitment to duty
even in the face of this sham impeachment.
I also note for the record when I asked at last week's
hearing about providing the Secretary due process during the
committee's impeachment proceedings, the Chairman gave no
substantive answers to my repeated inquiries. In fact, he
seemed to have even considered providing the Secretary due
process and appeared unprepared to respond. This is
unfortunate, but not surprising.
Again, this isn't a real impeachment. It is a
predetermined, preplanned, partisan political stunt.
Yesterday, the Chairman threatened to hold Secretary
Mayorkas in contempt for failing to appear before the
committee, even though the Secretary has already agreed to
appear. That is not how contempt works.
I can't help but wonder if Republicans are getting a bit
desperate, especially after their hearing last week was a flop.
It fell flat after their witnesses, three Republican
politicians, rehashed old partisan talking points without so
much as a shred of evidence to support their politically-
motivated claims for impeachment.
The Democratic witness, respected impeachment expert and
Constitutional scholar, Professor Frank Bowman testified,
``Policy differences, no matter how severe, no matter how
heated, are simply not grounds for impeachment.'' You cannot
impeach a Cabinet Secretary because you don't like a
President's policies. That is not what impeachment is for. That
is not what the Constitution says. Unfortunately, Republicans
are willing to damage the Constitution they claim to hold dear
because they think it will benefit them politically.
Which brings us to today's hearing. I want to begin by
expressing my deepest sympathies to Mrs. Noble and Mrs. Dunn on
the tragic loss of your children. I cannot fathom your pain. As
a father and a grandfather my heart truly goes out to you.
Indeed, our hearts go out to all those who have lost loved ones
to drugs and violence. We are committed to helping prevent
future tragedies.
Democrats want to strengthen border security. We want to
keep fentanyl off our streets. We want to keep communities
safe. We want to help those struggling with addiction. But
impeachment will not do any of that. The fact is, impeachment
is a waste of precious time that could be used to legislate on
the urgent issues, if only Republicans were willing to do it.
The Democratic witness today, Professor Deborah Pearlstein,
is a Constitutional law scholar. But in addition to her
knowledge of impeachment, she has great expertise on the
awesome power vested in Congress by the Constitution to affect
change for the American people. That power is not through
impeachment.
As Professor Pearlstein stated in her testimony, and I
quote, ``Impeachment of Secretary Mayorkas can have no impact
on the administration's exercise of immigration enforcement
discretion, a power the Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized
is vested by the Constitution and Executive branch.'' Instead,
Congress power comes from its ability to legislate.
As Professor Pearlstein goes on to say, ``No branch of
government has more power under our Constitution to address
matters of border security than Congress.'' In other words, it
is up to Congress to provide funding to interdict fentanyl, fix
our broken immigration system, and provide help for those
suffering from opioid addiction. That is our role in this, to
use the power provided under the Constitution to legislate on
important issues, to help people who need it most and not some
baseless, senseless impeachment. I look forward to hearing from
Professor Pearlstein about Congress' power to make meaningful
progress on these and other issues.
Mr. Chairman, I made this plea to you last week. It fell on
deaf ears, but I will try again. Let's drop this baseless
impeachment and get back to doing the real work of securing the
homeland and helping people across this great country.
Before I yield back, Mr. Chairman, I have a parliamentary
inquiry. I would like to give you another chance at this one.
Chairman Green. You are recognized.
Mr. Thompson. Mr. Chairman, during our hearing last week,
you said, ``The committee will follow the rules of the House,''
with regard to Secretary Mayorkas' due process. What provisions
of House rule XI grants the Secretary representation before
this committee?
Chairman Green. Just a question of clarification on the
parliamentary proceeding. What rule are you citing?
Mr. Thompson. Rule XI.
Chairman Green. Rule XI? The Secretary is not appearing
before the committee today, so his counsel is not necessary.
Mr. Thompson. Mr. Chairman, we all know that Secretary
Mayorkas has been willing to appear before this committee. He
is not running from anything. He has been to the Capitol Hill
27 times since he was sworn in. My question is about due
process. There is nothing in the standing House rules that
protects the Secretary's rights.
So, Mr. Chairman, pursuant to clause 2(j)(1) of rule XI, I
am furnishing you with a demand for a Minority day hearing on
this subject signed by all the Democratic Members of this
committee.
Chairman Green. So the demand is not proper. You have a
witness present, so. This one before, right?
Mr. Thompson. Yeah. This is the unanimous consent that
included in the record the article. But also, I have this
request for the----
Chairman Green. You want this included in the record? Is
that what you are asking?
Mr. Thompson. Well, that is a request for a Minority date
for the committee.
Chairman Green. OK. So as I understand the rules, the
request is only in order when you don't have a witness present.
Today you have a witness present, so this is not in order.
Mr. Goldstein. Mr. Chairman, may I make a parliamentary
inquiry on that?
Chairman Green. Yeah.
Mr. Goldstein. Is this an impeachment inquiry?
Chairman Green. You want to read the request? Yeah. This is
actually a hearing, not an inquiry.
Mr. Goldstein. Is this part of an impeachment
investigation?
Chairman Green. This is an impeachment hearing.
Mr. Goldstein. OK. Under impeachment precedent, separate
and apart from this particular hearing, the Minority is allowed
to have a hearing of its own choice and its own witnesses. That
has happened in every single impeachment in history. If this is
going to be an impeachment process, then there have to be
rights and due process afforded to the individual who is being
impeached. Part of that historically, under historic precedent,
is that there is a Minority day with Minority-determined
witnesses, not a Minority witness who is added to a hearing
that the Majority determines.
Chairman Green. So I want to make clear this supposed
misinformation about the request to Secretary Mayorkas. There
have been multiple, multiple requests, 4 in fact, of me to ask
him to come and be a part of this, and he has to the press said
yes, to me not provided any dates. At some date in the future.
That is stonewalling.
So at some point, after 4, I finally said, I guess it was
Monday, well just send us a testimony in writing. So far, we
haven't seen that either.
The effort to give Secretary Mayorkas an opportunity to
come before the committee in this context has been made many
times. I appreciate that the Ranking Member pointed out that he
has been in front of our committee, but that was mandated by,
you know, the threats briefing. That is what he came for, was
the threats briefing, not a part of this investigation on the
Southwest Border. Every time we have invited him, he has
refused to give us a date to come.
So he has been afforded an opportunity to come.
Mr. Goldstein. I understand that. That is a separate issue,
whether or not Mr. Mayorkas wants to take part in his own
impeachment inquiry. But the question for you is that as part
of the House impeachment process, there must be afforded to the
Minority a hearing that the Minority gets to determine because
it is an impeachment process, it is not a normal oversight
investigation.
What Secretary Mayorkas wants to do is a separate matter. I
understand your view and I understand, you know, the Ranking
Member has a different view. I am sure we will get all of the
different letters in the record. You know, I have an article
here saying that the DHS letter contradicts the GOP claim that
Mayorkas refused to testify, which I could enter by unanimous
consent.
But we are just talking right now about the impeachment
process. In this committee, where it has never been done
before, it is normally in the Judiciary Committee, that there
has to be a Minority day with Minority-determined witnesses.
Chairman Green. I appreciate the letter, and we will take
it into consideration.
Mr. Ranking Member, you are recognized for the remainder of
your opening statement.
Mr. Thompson. Well, let me ask unanimous consent that that
be included in the record.
Chairman Green. Without objection, so ordered.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Thompson. So, Mr. Chairman, rule XI does not mention
anything about having a Minority witness at any given hearing.
It only provides for a Minority date. I refer the Chair to page
599 of the House rules manual.
Chairman Green. Were you asking a question, Mr. Ranking
Member?
Mr. Thompson. Yes. I mean, we didn't ask about a witness.
We asked for a date.
Chairman Green. Yes, I saw the letter. We have entered it
into the record, and we want to continue with this hearing. We
will address that later.
Mr. Thompson. No? Well, Mr. Chairman, this committee cannot
proceed to any marker. I know that you have long planned in
which you committed to the Speaker and to a Member of this
committee behind closed doors without a full hearing of the
merits of impeachment. But a Minority day on an impeachment is
allowed by the rules.
Chairman Green. Thank you.
Mr. Thompson. So we are just trying to----
Chairman Green. No, I appreciate you----
Mr. Thompson. Do you plan to honor that?
Chairman Green. We are going to take it into consideration,
and I will meet with you later to talk about it.
Mr. Thompson. Well----
Chairman Green. Do you have any other comments for your
opening remarks?
Mr. Thompson. Well, it is a simple request. It is in the
rules, and we just want the rules to be followed.
Chairman Green. There is an interpretation disagreement on
this. Our parliamentarian says that you are entitled to
witnesses and not a specific hearing. We will take a look at it
after this and you and I can talk about it then.
Mr. Magaziner. Mr. Ranking Member, will you yield for a
question?
I just want to make sure, because I don't think it was
entered into the record before, the Ranking Member referred to
the letter that counsel of Secretary Mayorkas sent to the
committee on January 11.
Chairman Green. If I could, Mr. Magaziner, this is his
opening statement, not his 5 minutes. He can yield time to you
in his 5 minutes.
Mr. Magaziner. OK. I was just going to ask unanimous
consent that the letter be entered into the record, but.
Chairman Green. I am fine with that. We will break protocol
here just a second. If there is no objection, so ordered.
[The information follows:]
Letter From Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs Zephranie
Buetow
January 11, 2024.
The Honorable Mark E. Green,
Chairman, Committee on Homeland Security, U.S. House of
Representatives, Washington, DC 20510.
Dear Chairman Green: Thank you for your January 5, 2024, letter
requesting Secretary Mayorkas's participation in a U.S House Committee
on Homeland Security (the Committee) hearing on January 18, 2024. I am
responding on behalf of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Secretary Mayorkas is laser focused on border security. That is why
he has diligently worked over the past 3 years to address decades-long
border challenges on multiple fronts. For example, this week the
Secretary was in Eagle Pass, TX, making his 24th visit to the border
since taking office. The Secretary is incredibly grateful to the
distinguished men and women who serve in the Department, and proud to
serve side-by-side with them. They are on the front lines each day and
we owe them a debt of gratitude, and the Secretary has made a
commitment to obtain the necessary resources they need to do their
jobs.
As we all know, our immigration system has been broken for decades.
From the start, the Secretary has committed to working with Congress to
identify legislative solutions that will improve the current system. To
that end, he is fully engaged with Senate Republicans and Democrats in
on-going negotiations to craft a supplemental funding package. Current
negotiations contemplate significant investments in border security, as
well as substantive changes to immigration policy. The Secretary has
repeatedly sought legislative reforms on immigration and is working
with this group in a good-faith effort to break the gridlock.
At the same time, the Secretary is working to address the root
causes of this migration, including the broader hemispheric trends that
draw refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants from across the Americas.
This month alone, he will host a delegation from the Republic of Mexico
to address issues of mutual concern, and travel to Central America to
hold in-person discussions with other strategic partners in the
hemisphere. The Secretary is working tirelessly to foster the close
partnership and engagement with our international neighbors that are
necessary to address these root causes.
The Secretary also continues to engage regularly with Congress.
This is evidenced by his participation in 27 congressional hearings to
date--more than his predecessors attended during the first 3 years of
the prior administration (23), and only one less than during the entire
4 years of the Trump administration (28). These have included 3
hearings in the past 11 weeks.
In keeping with the Secretary's commitment to cooperate with
congressional Committees, he will make himself available to testify
before the Committee. Consistent with the customary accommodations
process, we look forward to working through the details with Committee
staff and agreeing upon the date and structure of the hearing. As you
can appreciate, the Secretary's schedule is quite committed with the
work of the Department including hosting Mexican Cabinet Members next
week to discuss border enforcement.
Thank you again for your invitation. Should you wish to discuss
this or any homeland security issue, please contact the DHS Office of
Legislative Affairs[.]
Respectfully,
Zephranie Buetow,
Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs.
Chairman Green. Mr. Ranking Member, you are recognized
still.
The Ranking Member yields. Thank you.
[The statement of Ranking Member Thompson follows:]
Statement of Ranking Member Bennie G. Thompson
January 18, 2024
Before we begin today's hearing, I want to address misinformation
my Republican colleagues are spreading, falsely alleging that Secretary
Mayorkas is refusing to testify before this committee.
Let me set the record straight. Secretary Mayorkas has testified
before Congress more than any other Cabinet Secretary. He has appeared
before this committee twice in the last year, including just 2 months
ago when he testified for several hours about border security. His
willingness to work with the committee has been a welcome change from
the Trump administration, whose officials consistently refused to
comply with Congressional oversight. They ignored virtually every
oversight letter and even defied a subpoena for their so-called
``Acting Secretary'' to appear before the committee.
Secretary Mayorkas, however, has been forthright in dealing with
Congress. In response to the Chairman's request to testify at today's
hearing, on January 11, 2024, the Secretary sent a letter agreeing to
make himself available to testify at a future, mutually-agreed-upon
date.
However, the Chairman refused to accept. Instead, Republicans sent
angry letters and tweets accusing the Secretary of refusing to testify,
knowing full well he said he would appear. Republicans are acting in
bad faith. Unfortunately, that's nothing new.
Months ago, Chairman Green promised donors at a campaign event that
he would bring an impeachment case against Secretary of Homeland
Security Alejandro Mayorkas. He told his contributors to ``get the
popcorn'' and promised ``it's going to be fun.'' Before the committee
had even begun its inquiry, Republicans had predetermined the outcome.
But why did Republicans invite the Secretary to testify only to refuse
his offer to appear? The answer to that question appeared in The Hill
newspaper last night.
According to an internal Republican memo dated January 10, 2024,
Republicans had already scheduled a committee vote to impeach the
Secretary prior to holding a single impeachment hearing. Just as we've
said all along, the outcome of Republicans' so-called impeachment
``investigation'' has been predetermined from the start.
The Chairman promised to follow the facts, but Republicans never
really intended to do so. They are hurrying to adhere to an artificial
time line agreed to in a backroom deal between Republican leadership,
which is holding on by a thread, and its most extreme MAGA members.
This isn't a real impeachment, it's a MAGA spectacle paid for by
Americans' tax dollars for Republican political gain. But through it
all, Secretary Mayorkas remains committed to his job, the Department of
Homeland Security's mission, and the men and women who serve with him
at DHS.
The Secretary is also continuing to work diligently on a bipartisan
basis to secure necessary funding for border security and to prepare
the Department for a possible shutdown. I wish my Republican colleagues
would engage the Secretary to provide the Department the funding it
needs, but they have refused.
I look forward to continuing to work with Secretary Mayorkas on
critical homeland security issues facing the country and commend him
for his unwavering commitment to duty even in the face of this sham
impeachment.
I will also note for the record that when I asked at last week's
hearing about providing the Secretary due process during the
committee's impeachment proceedings, the Chairman gave no substantive
answers to my repeated inquiries. In fact, he seemed not to have even
considered providing the Secretary due process and appeared unprepared
to respond. That is unfortunate but not surprising.
Again, this isn't a real impeachment, it's a pre-determined, pre-
planned, partisan political stunt.
Yesterday, the Chairman threatened to hold Secretary Mayorkas in
contempt for failing to appear before the Committee . . . even though
the Secretary has already agreed to appear. That's not how contempt
works. I can't help but wonder if Republicans are getting a bit
desperate, especially after their hearing last week was a flop.
It fell flat after their witnesses--3 Republican politicians--
rehashed old partisan talking points without so much as a shred of
evidence to support their politically-motivated claims for impeachment.
The Democratic witness, respected impeachment expert and Constitutional
scholar Professor Frank Bowman, testified that ``policy differences, no
matter how severe, no matter how heated, are simply not grounds for
impeachment.''
You cannot impeach a Cabinet Secretary because you don't like a
President's policies. That's not what impeachment is for. That's not
what the Constitution says. Unfortunately, Republicans are willing to
damage the Constitution they claim to hold dear because they think it
will benefit them politically.
Which brings us to today's hearing. I want to begin by expressing
my deepest sympathies to Ms. Nobles and Mrs. Dunn on the tragic loss of
your children. I cannot fathom your pain. As a father and a
grandfather, my heart truly goes out to you. Indeed, our hearts go out
to all those who have lost loved ones to drugs and violence, and we are
committed to helping prevent future tragedies.
Democrats want to strengthen border security. We want to keep
fentanyl off our streets. We want to keep communities safe. We want to
help those struggling with addiction. But impeachment would do none of
that. The fact is impeachment is a waste of precious time that could be
used to legislate on these urgent issues, if only Republicans were
willing to do so.
The Democratic witness today, Professor Deborah Pearlstein, is a
Constitutional law scholar. But in addition to her knowledge of
impeachment, she has great expertise on the awesome power vested in
Congress by the Constitution to effect change for the American people.
That power is not through impeachment.
As Professor Pearlstein stated in her testimony ``impeachment of
Secretary Mayorkas . . . can have no impact on the administration's
exercise of immigration enforcement discretion, a power the Supreme
Court has repeatedly recognized is vested by the Constitution in the
Executive branch.'' Instead, Congress' power comes from its ability to
legislate. As Professor Pearlstein goes on to say ``no branch of
government has more power under our Constitution to address matters of
border security than Congress.''
In other words, it is up to Congress to provide funding to
interdict fentanyl, fix our broken immigration system, and provide help
for those suffering from opioid addiction. That's our role in this--to
use the power provided under the Constitution to legislate on important
issues, to help people who need it most. Not some baseless, senseless
impeachment. I look forward to hearing from Professor Pearlstein about
Congress' power to make meaningful progress on these and other issues.
Mr. Chairman, I made this plea to you last week. It fell on deaf
ears, but I'll try again. Let's drop this baseless impeachment and get
back to doing the real work of securing the homeland and helping people
across this great country.
Chairman Green. Other Members of the committee are reminded
that opening statements may be submitted for the record.
[The statement of Hon. Jackson Lee follows:]
Statement of Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee
January 18, 2024
Chairman Green, and Ranking Member Thompson, grief and loss that
parents feel at the death of a child is unimaginable to those who have
not experienced such grief.
I would like to take this opportunity, at the outset, to express my
condolences to Ms. Tammy Nobles, who lost her daughter Kayla Hamilton
who was murdered; and Mrs. Josephine Dunn, who lost her daughter Ashley
to fentanyl poisoning.
Your presence here is a stark reminder that our children are
dying--that we must break the cycle of drug addiction and end the
needless loss of life from fentanyl and fentanyl-related overdoses.
I regret that today's witnesses have been summoned to participate
in an impeachment process hearing, because we do need to hear their
testimony to speak to the real underlying threat facing our Nation--a
comprehensive effort to address addiction in society.
The committee has been well-served over my tenure when it has taken
the time to listen to local and State governments on homeland security
issues.
It is rare that a citizen is asked to testify before the committee
on an issue of concern like the impact fentanyl is having on families.
I look forward to their testimony:
Hon. Mark Dannels, sheriff, Cochise County, Arizona;
Tammy Nobles, private citizen;
Josephine Dunn, private citizen; and
Deborah Pearlstein, director, Program in Law and Public
Policy and Charles and Marie Robertson visiting professor in
Law and Public Affairs, Princeton University (*Democratic
Witness*).
As the chair of the Congressional Children's Caucus, I have worked
with families like yours who have lost children to drugs, gangs, and
violence.
I go where these tragedies happen to remind people that these
deaths impact not only parents, but entire communities--like those in
Uvalde, Texas where 19 were killed while in their school by gun
violence.
I am most grateful to parents who struggle through their grief to
share their experiences and tell the story of their children's life
with others, especially when their loss came at the hands of violence,
suicide, or a substance disorder.
I join with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle in condemning
those who traffic in illicit drugs and guns.
As the Ranking Member on the House Committee on the Judiciary's
Subcommittee on Crime, I have a long resume of efforts to implement
reform of laws to favor diversion programs for non-violent drug
offenses so that these individuals might receive the help needed to
overcome addictions and reclaim lives.
Fentanyl is a source of the grief for millions of families who have
lost loved ones to a substance disorder, but this grief will not be
eased by pointing a finger at the Secretary of Homeland Security and
blaming him for their tragedy.
Throughout American history this scenario has only lead to more
grief and violence that claims more lives needlessly.
Republicans may not like the Biden administration's policies, but
policy differences are not grounds for impeachment under the
Constitution.
There is no basis for impeaching Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, for
the number of fentanyl deaths in the United States, he is neither a
drug lord, nor trafficker of uncontrolled substances.
Secretary Mayorkas has not committed ``Treason, Bribery, or other
high Crimes and Misdemeanors''--the United States Constitution's
standard; for an impeachment.
Secretary Mayorkas is a public servant charged with enforcing the
laws of the United States, which include drug interdiction at borders.
Secretary Mayorkas is carrying out his duties faithfully.
If this committee is stepping up to address the Homeland Security
threat posed by substance disorders, then I applaud this effort.
However, to do so responsibly we cannot blame a person for a crisis
that has been in the making for over 40 years.
If we are to end the grip that fentanyl we must address the supply
of illicit fentanyl in the United States, and the reduction of demand
for drugs that is fueled by addiction.
This will require the Federal Government to acknowledge the lessons
of previous failed drug wars and embracing inclusive strategies that
range from aggressive interdiction to community-based treatment.
The unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic contributed to the rise in
fentanyl-related overdoses beginning in 2019--as treatment, recovery,
and prevention services were interrupted while schools, jobs, and
mental health support faltered--especially for those suffering from
substance use disorders.
While the previous administration was focused on China and building
a wall on the Southern Border, fentanyl came in through the front door
and exploded on this country.
In 2021, fentanyl was linked to more than 1,600 fatal overdoses in
Texas, with African Americans becoming the face of a second national
wave of fentanyl-related overdoses.
Newly-released data shows a heightened rate of overdoses from
fentanyl among African Americans, especially among seniors
disproportionately affected by fentanyl addiction, despite an overall
decline of overdose rates.
Far from inaction as the hearing title implies, the Biden
administration and Congress have both taken decisive steps to address
the scourge of fentanyl.
To disrupt the supply chain of fentanyl, Democrats passed the
fiscal year 2023 omnibus spending package, which included $60 million
to hire 125 additional CEP officers and support personnel at ports of
entry and $70 million to strengthen non-intrusive inspection systems to
scan vehicles and cargo.
This investment in interdiction resources is critical because the
fentanyl supply chain crosses an ocean and several international
borders.
China, and increasingly India, export most of the chemical
precursors to Mexico that are used in the early stages of fentanyl
production, where Mexican cartels produce illicit fentanyl products for
smuggling to the United States.
That is why, the Biden administration is working with the Mexican
government through several initiatives and redoubling diplomatic
efforts to engage China to interrupt this deadly supply chain.
Contrary to some expressed opinion, the Mexican cartels primarily
use U.S. citizens to drive vehicles and trucks--filled with hard-to-
detect packages of synthesized fentanyl--through lawful ports of entry,
while couriers carry and send packages through the U.S. Mail and
private carriers.
There is one major danger posed by the illicit supply of fentanyl
that is particularly troubling: the production of fake or counterfeit
pills, which have been found in every State, and hold an often-deadly
secret.
Last year, DEA agents said 4 out of every 10 pills on Houston's
streets were laced with fentanyl--leading users to die without knowing
what they took.
To educate the public, particularly young people and their parents,
the Biden administration launched the ``One Pill Can Kill'' public
awareness campaign to raise awareness of the dangers of fake
prescription pills laced with fentanyl.
Because the cartels mass-produce fake pills to resemble other
Schedule II prescription opioids such as OxyContin and Percocet,
depressants such as Xanax, or stimulants like Adderall, even casual
users of illegal drugs can be drawn into the web of the fentanyl trade,
with deadly consequences.
The hard truth is that we can only temporarily disrupt the supply
of illicit of fentanyl temporarily before another cartel, trafficking
method, or analogue moves in to take over the market that addiction
creates. We can disrupt the flow, but we must also reduce the U.S.
demand for these drugs.
For far too long, our country has chosen the wrong approach to
fighting drug abuse and criminalizing addiction rather than preventing
and treating it--particularly, in communities of color.
That is why in the last Congress we passed the Rural Opioid Abuse
Prevention Act, which several Republicans who sit on this very
subcommittee voted against.
That legislation provided funding to rural communities to combat
the fentanyl crisis in addition to $104 million in grants and
assistance the administration allocated to the Rural Communities Opioid
Response Program.
It is important to stress that we must not make the same mistakes
with fentanyl, fentanyl-related substances, or other synthetic opioids.
The failed policies of the last 50 years have disproportionately
impacted black and brown communities in urban and rural areas.
As we learned through the crack epidemic of the 1980's followed by
methamphetamine in the 1990's, then prescription drugs, and back to
heroin once again--we cannot incarcerate our way out of the scourge of
fentanyl and synthetic opioids.
I am concerned that banning the Secretary of Homeland Security for
fentanyl-related deaths and violence misinforms the public as to the
true nature of the threat and risks diversion of needed resources away
from research and toward expand mandatory minimum penalties.
I also remain opposed to this impeachment process because it is
theater, without substance or a commitment to do the work needed to
fight fentanyl's grip on so many lives.
According to the most recent statistics from the U.S. Sentencing
Commission, there are already significant racial disparities in the
prosecution of fentanyl trafficking cases, with people of color
comprising more than 78 percent of those sentenced in 2021.
The same is true for Federal convictions involving fentanyl
analogues, of which 86 percent of those sentenced were people of color.
Of those prosecuted for fentanyl trafficking, less than 5 percent
received a guideline increase for a leadership or supervisory role and
less than 10 percent of those prosecuted for fentanyl analogue
trafficking received a leadership or supervisory increase.
This committee can expound on the record of fentanyl use in the
United States, its real costs to Homeland Security and make valuable
recommendations on addressing the impact it is having on the stability
and viability of communities that are rural, urban, suburban, and
exurban.
Those who are most visible in the trade in fentanyl are dealers,
mules, and couriers, which also the people most easily and quickly
replaced within drug trafficking organizations.
There is no doubt that we are currently experiencing a crisis.
But it's a crisis that Congress and the Biden administration have
responded to with urgency and clear eyes.
I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today and hope to have
an earnest discussion about solutions to reduce the supply of fentanyl
and combat and prevent addiction and overdoses.
Thank you. I yield back the balance of my time.
Chairman Green. I am pleased to have a distinguished panel
of witnesses before us today. I ask that our witnesses please
rise and raise their right hand.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Chairman Green. Let the record reflect that the witnesses
have answered in the affirmative. Thank you. You may be seated.
I would now like to formally introduce our witnesses, Ms.
Tammy Nobles. Ms. Nobles is the mother of a young Maryland
woman, Kayla Hamilton, who was raped and murdered in July 2022,
allegedly by a 17-year-old El Salvador native and MS-13 member,
who had illegally crossed the Southwest Border in March 2022 as
an unaccompanied alien child.
Ms. Dunn is an Arizona mother who lost her 26-year-old
daughter, Ashley Dunn, to fentanyl poisoning in 2021. Since her
daughter's passing, Josephine has become an advocate working to
stem the scourge that fentanyl is wrecking in the United
States.
Ms. Deborah Pearlstein is the director of the Princeton
Program in Law and Public Policy, and Charles and Marie
Robertson visiting professor of law and public affairs. Before
joining Princeton, she was professor of law and codirector of
the Floersheimer Center for Constitutional Democracy at Cardozo
Law School, Yeshiva University, and held visiting appointments
at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and Georgetown
University Law Center.
I thank all the witnesses for being here today.
I now recognize Ms. Nobles for 5 minutes to summarize her
opening statement.
STATEMENT OF TAMMY NOBLES, PRIVATE CITIZEN
Ms. Nobles. Good morning and thank you for having me here
today. My name is Tammy Nobles. I am the mother of Kayla
Hamilton. July 24, 2002, was one of the best days of my life. I
gave birth to a beautiful baby girl and named her Kayla Marie.
She loved to smile and laugh. She always kept her friends close
and never forgot anyone. She was kind, caring, thoughtful, and
funny. She loved God. She loved life and God. She showed the
world that being yourself was OK and you didn't have to follow
everyone else.
But sadly, on July 27, 2022, I received the worst news that
a parent doesn't want to hear. That my newly 20-year-old
daughter, Kayla Hamilton, was murdered in her own room and left
on the floor like trash. The illegal MS-13 known gang member
brutally raped and murdered my daughter by strangling her with
a cord and robbed her of $6.
During the attack, Kayla called her boyfriend for help, but
went to voicemail. The voicemail of the murderer strangling
Kayla was 2 minutes and 30 seconds long.
DHS employees failed to visually inspect the assailant by
lifting his shirt to check for gang-related tattoos. Had DHS
employees performed a visual inspection of the assailant's
body, they would have seen MS-13 gang-related tattoos on his
body, disqualifying him from entering the United States.
DHS employees failed to make a simple phone call to the El
Salvador government to verify if assailant was on an MS-13 gang
affiliation list. Had they done so, El Salvador government
officials would have confirmed that the assailant was a known
MS-13 gang member with a prior criminal history.
DHS supervisors have failed to train and supervise DHS
employees to properly screen minors attempting to enter U.S.
soil from El Salvador.
The operational neglect committed by DHS carried over into
DHHS, whose operational neglect further sealed my daughter's
fate. DHHS's operational neglect included its employees
violating clearly-articulated protocol requiring a minor to be
placed with a verified relative before entering the United
States. DHHS employees neglected and recklessly failed to
verify a legitimate family member of the assailant or sponsor
before allowing him to enter U.S. soil. There were clear
inconsistencies in the DHS and DHHS records regarding the
identity of the relative to whom the assailant was released.
Ultimately, DHHS's failures to--failures, the MS-13 gang
member as a minor to rent a room in a trailer park from another
individual who was also an illegal immigrant. There was also a
lack of transparency by DHS and DHHS, including but not limited
to DHHS failure to provide House of Representative Chairman Jim
Jordan a copy of its audit report.
Let's take a moment and think about how Kayla felt that
day, how scared she must have been that day, knowing that she
was dying, if she was going to see her mommy again, her baby
sister, her brother, or her cat Oreo. Kayla fought for her life
that day with all that she had, and in the end, she lost to an
individual that wasn't even supposed to be allowed in the
country.
For me, this is not a political issue. This is a safety
issue for everyone living in the United States. This could have
been anyone's daughter. I don't want any other parent to live
the nightmare that I am living. I am her voice now, and I'm
going to fight with everything I have to get her story told and
bring awareness of the issue at the border.
If we had stricter border policies, my daughter would still
be alive today. Nothing will bring my daughter back nor fix the
pain of not having her here. But I want to prevent this from
happening to someone else's child. This isn't about
immigration. This is about protecting everyone in the United
States. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Nobles follows:]
Prepared Statement of Tammy Nobles
January 18, 2024
Good morning and thank you for having me here today. My name is
Tammy Nobles. I am the mother of Kayla Hamilton.
July 24, 2002, was one of the best days of my life. I gave birth to
a beautiful baby girl and named her Kayla Marie. She loved to smile and
laugh. She always kept her friends close and never forgot anyone. She
was kind, caring, thoughtful, and funny. She loved life and God. She
showed the world that being yourself was ok and you didn't have to
follow everyone else. But sadly, on July 27, 2022, I received the worst
news that a parent doesn't want to hear, that my newly 20-year-old
daughter Kayla Hamilton was murdered in her own room and left on the
floor like trash.
The illegal MS-13 known gang member brutally raped and murdered my
daughter by strangling her with a cord and robbed her of $6.00. During
the attack Kayla called her boyfriend for help but went to voice mail.
The voice mail of the murderer strangling Kayla was 2 minutes and 30
seconds long.
DHS employees failed to visually inspect the assailant by lifting
his shirt to check for gang-related tattoos. Had DHS employees
performed a visual inspection of the assailant's body, they would have
seen MS-13 gang-related tattoos on his body, disqualifying him from
entering the United States. DHS employees failed to make a simple phone
call to the El Salvador government to verify if assailant was on an MS-
13 gang affiliation list. Had they done so, El Salvador government
officials would have confirmed that the assailant was a known MS-13
gang member with a prior criminal history. DHS supervisors had failed
to train and supervise DHS employees to properly screen minors
attempting to enter U.S. soil from El Salvador.
The operational neglect committed by DHS carried over into DHHS
whose operational neglect further sealed my daughter's fate. DHHS's
operational neglect included its employees violating clearly-
articulated protocol requiring a minor to be placed with a ``verified''
relative before entering the United States. DHHS employees neglected
and recklessly failed to verify a legitimate family member of the
assailant or sponsor before allowing him to enter U.S. soil. There were
clear inconsistencies in the DHS and DHHS records regarding the
identity of the relative to whom the assailant was released.
Ultimately, DHHS's failures allowed the MS-13 gang member, as a minor,
to rent a room in a trailer park from another individual who was also
an illegal immigrant. There was also a lack of transparency by DHS and
DHHS, including but not limited to DHHS failure to provide House of
Representative Chairman Jim Jordan a copy of its audit report.
Let's take a moment and think about how Kayla felt that day. How
scared she must have been that day knowing that she was dying. And if
she was going to see her mommy again, her baby sister, her brother, or
her cat Oreo. Kayla fought for her life that day with all that she had
and in the end she lost to an individual that wasn't even supposed to
be allowed in the country.
For me this not a political issue this a safety issue for everyone
living in the United States. This could have been anyone's daughter. I
don't want any other parent to live the nightmare that I am living. I
am her voice now and I am going to fight with everything I have to get
her story told and bring awareness of the issue at the border.
If we had stricter border policies my daughter would still be alive
today. Nothing will bring my daughter back nor fix the pain of not
having her here, but I want to prevent this from happening to someone
else's child. This isn't about immigration this is about protecting
everyone in the United States.
Chairman Green. Thank you, Ms. Nobles.
I now recognize Mrs. Dunn for 5 minutes to summarize her
opening statement.
STATEMENT OF JOSEPHINE DUNN, PRIVATE CITIZEN
Mrs. Dunn. Good morning. Before I begin, I wish to thank
you all for the gift of your time.
I want to thank you for allowing me to share my beautiful
daughter's story. As painful as it is for me to do so, I wish
to spare as many parents the unfathomable pain and debilitating
grief that I carry every single day.
My daughter Ashley has left this Earth 967 days ago. Today
would have been her 29th birthday.
In the next 5 minutes, you will see many beautiful photos
of Ashley on the screens. Photos are all that my family and I
have left of her. That's not true. I guess we do have a small
amount of ashes in an urn, and we do have our memories.
In that same 5 minutes that I get to share her story, after
I traveled all the way from Arizona for Mr. Mayorkas not to
appear here today, someone else's loved one in the United
States will die in this same 5 minutes that I get to speak
because of fentanyl. Over the next 24 hours, 190 loved ones in
this country will die from fentanyl. Fifty percent of that
fentanyl is coming through my State with an open border. The
beautiful State of Arizona today will lose 5 people to
fentanyl. Five.
You see, Arizona recognizes that fentanyl is a weapon of
mass destruction. While you see her beautiful smile and almond-
shaped eyes scroll across those screens, more often than not, I
remember her differently. Every time I close my eyes, I see all
of the tubes. When it's quiet, I hear all of the machines that
were keeping her alive. You see, my husband and I had to sit
for 86 hours in the ICU while we were begging God, because,
yes, we're Christians and we're conservative, we're from
Arizona, we were begging God, we were pleading God, bargaining
that she would just breathe.
Over the last 32 months, Ashley did not celebrate her son's
fifth, sixth, or seventh birthday. She did not watch her baby
graduate from kindergarten. She did not celebrate Christmas or
Thanksgiving, nor did we as a family. I'm sure you guys did. So
she celebrated the last of her birthdays when she was 26. She
will forever be 26.
Before you decide how you feel about my family and about
fentanyl, understand that fentanyl affects all walks of life.
By the time my testimony is over, please know that one person
will have died.
Ashley had brown hair and the most beautiful eyes. Ashley,
with one smile, would steal your heart. Ashley had a kind heart
and a gentle soul.
I understand that the mission of the Department of Homeland
Security is to secure our Nation's air, land, and sea borders
to prevent illegal activity while facilitating lawful travel
and trade. In my humble opinion, Mr. Mayorkas' border policies
is partially responsible for my daughter's death. His wide-open
border policy allows massive quantities of poisonous fentanyl
into our country. Arizona is the fentanyl superhighway into the
United States. I personally feel Mr. Mayorkas is responsible
for opening that border to allow more than 10 million illegal
border crossings since February 2021, which supports most of
the illegal fentanyl into this country.
This weapon of mass destruction has killed over 100,000
Americans on our soil for 2 years in a row. Under Secretary
Mayorkas' leadership, or lack thereof, fentanyl is an invasion.
The weapon of mass destruction has caused unimaginable numbers
of deaths, unmeasurable damage to our country's family,
families, including my own.
My family is broken. My heart is broken. He couldn't even
be here to face me today. Whatever he's doing that is more
important than facing me today, I don't know what that could
be.
Our country deserves a secure border. Our country deserves
to feel safe. Our country deserves to be free of fentanyl. We
need to close the fentanyl superhighway. We need to close the
border. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Dunn follows:]
Prepared Statement of Josephine Dunn
Before I begin, I wish to thank you for the gift of your time. I
want to thank you for allowing me to share my beautiful daughter's
story. As painful as this is for me to do, I wish to spare as many
parents the unfathomable pain and debilitating grief I carry every
single day. My daughter left this Earth 967 days ago. Today would have
been her 29th birthday.
In the next 5 minutes you will see many beautiful photos of Ashley.
Photos are all my familiy and I have left of her. That is not true I
guess we do have a small urn with some of her ashes and we do have our
memories.
In the same 5 minutes that I get to share her story, someone else's
loved one in the United States will die from Fentanyl. Over the next 24
hours 190 loved ones will die. Today, in my State. The beautiful State
of Arizona alone 5 people will lose their lives to this weapon of mass
destruction.
While you see her beautiful smile and almond shaped eyes scroll
across the screen, more often than not I remember her differently.
Every time I close my eyes. I see all of the tubes. When it is quiet, I
hear all of the machines working to keep her alive. You see, my husband
and I sat with her for 86 hours in the ICU. We were begging God for her
to just come back to us. Pleading. Bargaining.
Over the last 32 months, Ashley did not celebrate her beautiful
son's 5th, 6th, or 7th birthday. She did not watch him graduate from
Kindergarten. She did not celebrate the 4th of July's, Thanksgivings,
Christmas', New Year's days. She did her birthdays because she will
forever be 26 years old.
The only reason for her absence is she died of Fentanyl poisoning
on May 26, 2021. She spent over 30 minutes on the floor of her bathroom
between the commode and the bathtub. She lay waiting for her
``friends'' to clean up her home before calling 9-1-1 requesting
paramedics. The Good Samaritan Act did not save her.
Her murderer, a convicted, repeat drug distribution offender, a 44-
year-old career drug dealer/trafficker calculated the value of Ashley's
life to equate to a mere $40. This dealer has 14 prior convictions for
drug sales. ``Dawn the dealer'' even went so far as warning Ashley of
the possibility of her death. These facts are clearly documented in
Ashley's phone. That phone was surrendered to the honorable officers of
PANT because a search warrant was issued.
As Ashley laid in the ICU at YRMC in Prescott her father and I
prayed at her bedside for her to just breathe. You see, Ashley never
took another breath on her own. At her bedside, her father and I were
faced with the unbearable decision to discontinue all mechanical life-
saving measures after 86 grueling hours of begging and pleading she
just survive this poisoning. That she just breathed.
Instead one half of ONE PILL that contained 5 mg of Fentanyl killed
her.
Her dealer cannot be prosecuted for Ashley's death. Nor can she
even be charged. Ashley's son, her father, and I are not even
considered victims of ``Dawn the dealer's'' actions. We do not even
have the ability to provide a victim impact statement in Ashley's
trafficker's case. The evidence is clear in Ashley's phone. Toxicology
report states 5mg of Fentanyl. Nothing can be done. She knowingly sold
poison to our daughter which caused her death. Yet she will not be
charged.
Before you decide how you feel about this legislation and our fight
to raise awareness about Fentanyl and drugs in general I wish to remind
you no family is immune from being touched by Fentanyl. Fentanyl is
poison. My fight to pursue and see drug dealers prosecuted, poison
peddlers in prison, and the murders for quick money will only end when
I take my last breath.
I do not wish to bore you with statistics except for the following:
In the United States, every 5 minutes of every day of the week,
someone dies from overdose/poisoning. Yes, you read that correctly.
That is something I never wanted to know. Please take a moment and
thank God right now, if your family has not been touched or changed by
addiction, or death because of addiction, or death from fentanyl/opioid
poisoning. All street drugs are potentially laced with fentanyl these
days.
So by the time my testimony is over, someone will have died from an
opioid overdose/poisoning. Maybe someone you know. Someone's child.
Someone's mother. Someone's spouse. Someone's parents. Someone's
friend. Someone's aunt/uncle. Let that sink in. Ashley Dunn was my
``someone''. She will not die in vain.
Ashley had brown hair and beautiful almond-shaped eyes. Ashley,
with one smile would steal your heart. Ashley had a kind heart and
gentle soul. Ashley had a personality that would light up every room.
She paid the ultimate price by losing her life because of ONE pill.
Ashley was a daughter and a granddaughter. She was a sister and an
aunt. She was a wife and a mother. She was a cousin. She was a friend
and animal lover. She was an artist. She was a painter.
So the paradigm needs to change. Public awareness needs to change.
My hope is this email humbles you and your judgment of who might
take one pill. The people dying from fentanyl are high-school students,
first-time users, recreational users, and long-time addicts. These
people come from all walks of life.
Fentanyl doesn't discriminate. I will forever advocate for each and
every person that dies from fentanyl overdose/poisoning because those
people deserved every bit of space on this earth as we do. Every bit of
love and peace and opportunity. Survival from overdose is possible but
not for my Ashley. My Ashley has died.
I understand that the Mission of Department of Homeland Security is
to secure our Nation's air, land, sea, and borders to prevent illegal
activity while facilitating lawful travel and trade. In my humble
opinion, Mr. Mayorkas' border polices is partially responsible for my
daughter's death.
His wide-open border policy allows massive quantities of poisonous
fentanyl into our country. Arizona is the fentanyl superhighway into
the United States. I personally feel Mr. Mayorkas is responsible for
opening the border to allow more than 10 million illegal border
crossings since February 2021 which supply illegal Fentanyl. This
weapon of mass destruction that has killed over 100,000 Americans on
our soil for 2 years in a row. Under Secretary Mayorkas' leadership,
Fentanyl is an invasion. This weapon of mass destruction, has caused
unimaginable numbers of deaths and unmeasurable damage to our country's
families. My family is broken. My heart is broken. I live in a border
State. I believe that our border is not secure. I believe myself and
the American people have been misled by Mr. Mayorkas. Our country
deserves a secure border. Our country deserves a secure border. We need
to close the Fentanyl superhighway. We need to close the border.
Thank you.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Green. Thank you, Ms. Dunn.
I now recognize Ms. Pearlstein for 5 minutes to summarize
her opening statement.
STATEMENT OF DEBORAH N. PEARLSTEIN, DIRECTOR, PRO-
GRAM IN LAW AND PUBLIC POLICY AND CHARLES AND
MARIE ROBERTSON VISITING PROFESSOR IN LAW AND PUB-
LIC AFFAIRS, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
Ms. Pearlstein. Thank you very much, Chairman Green,
Ranking Member Thompson, Members of the committee. Thank you
for the invitation to participate in the committee's
consideration of whether Constitutional grounds exist to
impeach Department of Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas.
Having been a professor of Constitutional law for more than
a decade, a director of two different academic centers focused
on the study of Constitutional democracy, I've studied,
written, and taught about the unique role impeachment plays in
our system of government. As a mother and a former human rights
lawyer, I couldn't take the subject matter in front of the
committee today more seriously. My expertise, however, is in
the field of Constitutional law, not in immigration policy as
such, and my testimony, solely in my personal capacity, is thus
limited to questions of Constitutional authority that are
relevant here.
While my written statement goes into greater detail in
these few minutes, I'd like to highlight just two points.
First, impeachment is a narrow remedy for a specific kind of
misconduct, limited by the Constitution to addressing offenses
against our system of government that cannot be solved through
ordinary channels of redress. Second, no branch of government
has more power under our Constitution to address matters of
border security than Congress. Although the Framers of the U.S.
Constitution were convinced that impeachment would have to be
retained from the British regime they had just overthrown as a
remedy against the most egregious offenses of public officers,
they were determined to limit the scope of the power to ensure
it remained consistent with the new design of our
Constitutional democracy.
Central to our system is this principle of separation of
powers. Each branch of government remains independent, with
none empowered to fully control the members of the others.
Because impeachment was a potentially dangerous exception to
that overriding principle, the Framers significantly narrowed
the scope of the impeachment power as it existed under the law
of the king.
Above all, the Framers significantly narrowed the grounds
for which officials could be impeached. As now, treason and
bribery were recognized as the most serious offenses against a
system of government in which the American people were asked to
entrust elected leaders with acting in their interest. Treason
was a betrayal of the interests of the American people in favor
of the interests of a foreign enemy. Bribery involved a public
official placing his own interests in personal power and
enrichment above the interests of the public.
By labeling the other category other high crimes and
misdemeanors, the Framers signaled that they meant to include
only those offenses that posed a similarly severe threat, not
to a particular area of public policy, but to the very system
of government that depends on officials acting in good faith on
behalf of the people who place them in office. Policy
differences could be addressed through elections. Impeachment
was to be, and largely has been, a last-ditch mechanism to
address offenses against Constitutional democracy by a single
individual that can't be adequately addressed through ordinary
channels of government.
Second point, the first and most important remedy the
Constitution provides to address perceived failings of the
President and the Executive branch remains the separation of
powers, including Congress' authority to affect policy change
itself. When it comes to immigration, in particular, the
Supreme Court has long described Congressional power in the
field as plenary. Article I of the Constitution grants Congress
the power to set the terms and conditions by which a foreign
national may become a U.S. citizen, sweeping authorities to
provide for the common defense and general welfare of the
United States the power to make all laws necessary and proper
for carrying out these duties. And Article I, section 9, gives
Congress the exclusive power over how the U.S. Government
allocates its resources.
These vast powers, which the Constitution sets out in its
very first article, remain among our democracy's most
fundamental checks on the exercise of Executive power.
Despite these vast reserves of Constitutional authority, a
spike in partisan polarization in recent decades, a refusal to
work across partisan lines to solve common problems, has meant
the power to address pressing national problems has gone
unused. Nowhere has this effect been more apparent than in
Congress' failure to develop national policy on immigration.
Despite all that has changed, the last significant piece of
comprehensive immigration legislation to pass Congress with
bipartisan support was in 1986.
The action under consideration here, impeachment, isn't a
tool of policy change, particularly the impeachment of a single
Cabinet official who can be replaced by another official, given
precisely the same role, will have no effect on the
heartbreaking problems we have heard described.
Without taking a position on the wisdom of any particular
bill now under consideration, I understand that multiple pieces
of bipartisan legislation are today pending in the House, very
active negotiations under way in the Senate. The Framers of the
Constitution well understood the acute difficulty of embracing
compromise with their domestic political opponents. But for the
purpose of actually addressing the needs and easing the pain of
the people who live in this country, the Framers of the
Constitution thought that no one in Government could do more to
make a real difference than you. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Pearlstein follows:]
Prepared Statement of Deborah N. Pearlstein
January 18, 2024
introduction
Chairman Green, Ranking Member Thompson, Members of the committee,
thank you for the opportunity to participate in the committee's
consideration of whether Constitutional grounds exist to impeach
Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.
Having been a professor of Constitutional law for more than a decade,
and a director of two different academic centers focused on the study
of Constitutional democracy, I have repeatedly had occasion to study,
write, and teach about the unique role impeachment plays in our system
of government. My expertise is in the field of Constitutional law, not
in immigration policy as such, and my testimony is thus limited to
questions of Constitutional authority as relevant here. This testimony
is offered in my personal capacity and should not be understood to
reflect the views of my university employer or of any other institution
with which I am affiliated.
In this testimony, I make three points. First, impeachment is a
narrow remedy for specific kind of misconduct, limited by the
Constitution to the most serious class of offenses against our
Constitutional system of government: ``Treason, Bribery, or other high
Crimes and Misdemeanors.'' U.S. Const., Art. II, sec. 4. The apparent
allegations against Secretary Mayorkas described in various Committee
Majority Reports I have reviewed do not appear to establish grounds for
any of those offenses within the meaning of Article II. Second,
impeachment is not and has never been an instrument capable of
effecting policy change; impeachment of Secretary Mayorkas in
particular can have no impact on the administration's exercise of
immigration enforcement discretion, a power the Supreme Court has
repeatedly recognized is vested by the Constitution in the Executive
branch. Finally, no branch of Government has more power under our
Constitution to address matters of border security than Congress. While
that authority has gone largely untapped in recent decades, Congress
remains the sole branch of Government Constitutionally-empowered to,
for example, increase expenditures to bolster counter-fentanyl efforts
at the border; accelerate the processing of foreign nationals seeking
asylum; or define and establish criminal offenses against the United
States. U.S. Const., Art. I, sec. 8. Although impeachment is likewise
among the many powers afforded by the Constitution to Congress, there
appears to be no Constitutional basis for pursuing it here.
i. the impeachment power is specific and limited
While the Framers of the U.S. Constitution were convinced that
impeachment would have to be retained from the British regime they had
just overthrown as a remedy against the most egregious offenses of
public officers, they were determined to limit the scope of the power
to ensure it remained consistent with the new design of our
Constitutional democracy.\1\ Central to our system is the principle of
separation of powers: each branch of government remains independent,
with none empowered fully to control the members of the others. The
Framers believed that it was through such interbranch competition for
power, through ``[a]mbition [being] made to counteract ambition,'' as
Madison famously put it, that no one branch of government would be able
to assert powers that threatened the democratic nature of
government.\2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Multiple distinguished scholars and jurists have written
influential volumes describing the impeachment power over the years;
all reflect this basic historical understanding. See, e.g., MICHAEL J.
GERHARDT, IMPEACHMENT: A GUIDE FOR THE ENGAGED CITIZEN (2024); CHARLES
L. BLACK, JR. AND PHILIP BOBBIT, IMPEACHMENT: A HANDBOOK 26-28 (2d ed.
2018); LAURENCE TRIBE AND JOSHUA MATZ, TO END A PRESIDENCY: THE POWER
OF IMPEACHMENT 39 (2018).
\2\ THE FEDERALIST NO. 51, at 321-22 (James Madison) (Clinton
Rossiter ed., 1961).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Because impeachment was a potentially dangerous exception to that
overriding principle, the Framers thus significantly narrowed the scope
of the impeachment power as it had existed under the law of the regime
they had just overthrown.\3\ Under our Constitution, for example, the
consequences of impeachment were limited to disqualification from
office; no longer would it carry the other potentially harsh
punishments that made it more of a penal sanction under the British
King. Likewise, rather than requiring only a simple majority of each
chamber of parliament to impeach as had the British, under the U.S.
Constitution, no person could be convicted following impeachment
without the consent of two-thirds of the Senate. U.S. Const., Art. I,
sec. 3. Above all, the Framers significantly narrowed the grounds for
which officials could be impeached to ``Treason, Bribery, or other high
Crimes and Misdemeanors.'' U.S. Const., Art. II, sec. 4. Then, as now,
treason and bribery were recognized as the most serious offenses
against a system of government in which the American people were asked
to entrust elected leaders with acting in their interest. Treason was a
betrayal of the interests of the American people in favor of the
interests of a foreign enemy. U.S. Const., Art. III, sec. 3. Bribery
involved a public official placing his own interests in personal power
or enrichment over the interests of the public.\4\ By labeling the
residual category ``other high crimes and Misdemeanors,'' the Framers
signaled they meant to include only those offenses that posed a
similarly severe threat not to the accomplishment of particular
political or policy agendas, but to the very system of government that
depends on officials acting in good faith on behalf of the people who
placed them in office.\5\ Policy differences could be addressed through
elections. Impeachment was to be--and largely has been--a last-ditch
mechanism to address offenses against Constitutional democracy that
could not be adequately addressed through ordinary channels of
Government.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ See, e.g., GERHARDT, supra note 1.
\4\ See, e.g., TRIBE AND MATZ, supra note 1, at 33.
\5\ See, e.g., BLACK AND BOBBIT, supra note 1, at 33-35.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Although the incomplete records of the Constitutional Convention
only occasionally shed much light on Constitutional meaning, here,
those records are clear on what impeachment is not:
``maladministration,'' including malpractice, mismanagement,
incompetence, or even unpopular policies. While Virginia delegate to
the Convention George Mason had initially suggested limiting
impeachable offenses to ``treason, bribery or maladministration,''\6\
Madison rejected the last term out of just the separation-of-powers
concerns noted above. As Madison put it: ``So vague a term will be
equivalent to tenure during the pleasure of the Senate.''\7\ It would
effectively give Congress a degree of power over the Executive
equivalent to that in the parliamentary system the Framers rejected--
tying the Executive to the policy preferences of the legislature,
rather than maintaining it as the independent, co-equal branch the
Framers envisioned. Mason soon agreed to delete ``maladministration''
in favor of ``other high Crimes and Misdemeanors,'' the language that
remains today.\8\ The legislature should not be able to disable the
Executive function, the Framers were convinced, solely because it
objects to the administration's performance in office or disagrees with
its policies--even if, and indeed especially when, the White House is
controlled by one party and Congress another.\9\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ 2 THE RECORDS OF THE FEDERAL CONVENTION OF 1787, pp. 550-52
(Max Farrand, ed. 1911).
\7\ Id.
\8\ Id.
\9\ See, e.g., Various Law Professors, Letter to Background and
History of Impeachment: Hearing Before the Subcomm. on the Const. of
the House Comm. on the Judiciary, 105th Cong. Rec. 230 (1998)
(accessible at https://www.salon.com/1998/11/06/newsf_2/).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
To the extent it is possible to identify from the various
impeachment resolutions and reports made public thus far by this
committee's Majority, the Majority's allegations against Secretary
Mayorkas relate to neither treason nor bribery, but to the suggestion
that the Secretary has either been derelict in or neglectful of his
duties, or that he has in some respect exceeded or abused his lawful
authority.\10\ On the former claim, there have only been two occasions
in U.S. history in which officials were impeached based on allegations
related to the failure to carry out their official role: U.S. District
Judge John Pickering in 1804, and U.S. District Judge Mark Delahay in
1873.\11\ In both of those cases, the charges alleged that the
officials were either chronically inebriated or mentally incapacitated,
or both. In short, neither involved a case in which Congress was simply
dissatisfied with the official's performance in office; both involved
officials who were at base physically or mentally unable to carry out
their duties. No remotely comparable evidence of Secretary Mayorkas'
incapacity has been presented here.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\10\ See, e.g., Committee on Homeland Security Majority Report, DHS
Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas' Dereliction of Duty, July 19, 2023.
\11\ See EMILY FIELD VAN TASSEL, WHY JUDGES RESIGN: INFLUENCES ON
FEDERAL JUDICIAL SERVICE, 1789-1992, FEDERAL JUDICIAL CENTER (1993),
available at https://www.fjc.gov/sites/default/files/2012/judgeres.pdf.
Pickering was convicted in the Senate; Delahay resigned before his
trial. Id.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The subject of the Majority's other set of allegations, related to
the lawful authority of the Secretary of Homeland Security over
immigration affairs, has been the subject of extensive litigation in
the courts in recent years. As discussed in greater detail below, the
courts have found Secretary Mayorkas to have acted within the scope of
his Constitutional and statutory authority in cases that have
categorically rejected many of the precise allegations on which
Majority Reports and witnesses appear to rely on in support of their
claims to the contrary here. To the extent any such disputes are still
pending in the courts, they stand as evidence of why impeachment should
be understood as a Constitutionally-unavailable remedy in this case.
Far from a circumstance involving an exercise of power incapable of
being addressed by ordinary channels of government in our
Constitutional democracy, see supra, page 5, the grounds for
impeachment here involve the same claims that have been, and in some
cases still are, the subject of ordinary dispute resolution in the
independent courts.\12\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\12\ See, e.g., M.A. v. Mayorkas, 2023 WL 5321924 (D.D.C. July 6,
2023).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
ii. impeachment can have no impact on executive enforcement discretion
There is only a single case in all of U.S. history in which a
Federal official other than a judge or a President has been subject to
impeachment. Secretary of War William Belknap was impeached almost 150
years ago for allegations that he received financial ``kickbacks'' from
the operation of a trading post controlled by the U.S. military on
Indian lands.\13\ The allegations against Secretary Belknap--charged
with ``basely prostituting his high office to his lust for private
gain''--manifestly had nothing to do with his efforts to implement the
policies of the Presidential administration of which he was a part.\14\
Indeed, Belknap's case presented, in essence, the opposite situation
than is presented here--in which Secretary Mayorkas is accused, at
base, of carrying out immigration policies that have been embraced by
the Presidential administration in which he serves and has been
defended by it in court. In this case, even if Secretary Mayorkas is
impeached and removed from office, the President retains the
Constitutional authority simply to task the Secretary's successor with
pursuing exactly the same set of policies. This reality is almost
certainly a central reason why Congress has only once in the history of
the United States believed it was worth legislators' time and
taxpayers' substantial expense to pursue the impeachment of a Cabinet
official notwithstanding the certainty that the official's removal will
have no effect on administration policy.\15\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\13\ U.S. Senate, Impeachment Trial of Secretary of War William
Belknap, 1876, available https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-
procedures/impeachment/impeachment-belknap.htm. Belknap resigned
shortly before he was impeached and was later acquitted of these
charges in the Senate. Id.
\14\ Trial of William W. Belknap, 4 CONG. REC. 2 (Apr. 4, 1876).
Historians report that President Grant on learning of the scandal
personally wrote Belknap's letter of resignation and referred the case
to his Department of Justice for investigation. See JEAN EDWARD SMITH,
GRANT 595 (2001); WILLIAM MCFEELY, GRANT: A BIOGRAPHY 433-44 (1981).
\15\ There can be little question that impeachment proceedings
drain legislative resources that might be devoted to other matters. For
example, during one 3-year period, the House pursued 3 judicial
impeachment proceedings that together involved 17 days of hearings; in
2 of those, the time from commencement of the investigation until
approval of final articles of impeachment exceeded a year. Report of
the National Commission on Judicial Discipline and Removal, 152 F.R.D.
265 (1993), available https://judicial-discipline-reform.org/
judicial_complaints/1993_Report_Removal.pdf; see Emily Field van
Tassel, Why Judges Resign: Influences on Federal Judicial Service,
1789-1992, Federal Judicial Center (1993), available https://
www.fjc.gov/sites/default/files/2012/judgeres.pdf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
To the extent the Majority Reports' allegations against the
Secretary are related to those policies, in particular the suggestion
that Secretary Mayorkas somehow exceeded the scope of his lawful
authority to set priorities for the enforcement of U.S. immigration
law, that claim has been rejected most recently by an overwhelming,
bipartisan majority of the U.S. Supreme Court--for reasons that came as
little surprise to experts in Constitutional law. Article II of the
Constitution assigns the ``Executive Power'' to the President and
provides that the President ``shall take Care that the Laws be
faithfully executed.'' U.S. Const., Art. II, secs. 1, 3. As the Court
has made clear on multiple occasions, this power includes the authority
to decide ``how to prioritize and how aggressively to pursue legal
actions against defendants who violate the [criminal] law.''\16\ As the
Court has equally made clear, most recently in an 8-1 ruling just last
year, precisely the same principle applies with even greater force when
it comes to the enforcement of immigration laws, a context in which
``the Executive's enforcement discretion implicates not only `normal
domestic law enforcement priorities' but also `foreign-policy
objectives.' ''\17\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\16\ TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, 594 U.S.__, (2021); see also United
States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683, 693 (1974) (``the Executive branch has
exclusive authority and absolute discretion to decide whether to
prosecute a case''); Printz v. United States, 521 U.S. 898, 922-923
(1997) (Congress cannot Constitutionally transfer power to execute
Federal law to State officials); United States v. Armstrong, 517 U.S.
456, 464 (1996) (decisions about enforcement of ``the Nation's criminal
laws'' lie within the ``special province of the Executive'').
\17\ United States v. Texas, 599 U.S. 670 (2023) (quoting Reno v.
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Comm., 525 U.S. 471, 490-491 (1999)).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
It was in the very same case, United States v. Texas, that the
Court noted in rejecting a State challenge to Biden administration
immigration enforcement policies, that the Department of Homeland
Security was in key respects exercising discretion in this field in
just the same way every past recent administration has during the
decades-long period in which Congress has essentially absented itself
from the task of immigration policy reform. As Justice Kavanaugh
explained for the Court's majority: ``[T]he Executive branch does not
possess the resources necessary to arrest or remove all of the
noncitizens covered by [current Federal immigration law]. That reality
is not an anomaly--it is a constant. For the last 27 years since [these
laws] were enacted in their current form, all five Presidential
administrations have determined that resource constraints necessitated
prioritization in making immigration arrests.''\18\ It is precisely
that discretion Secretary Mayorkas has exercised during his tenure. Far
from amounting to an ``abuse'' of his powers or ``neglect'' of his
duties, he is carrying out those duties exactly as the Constitution,
the Supreme Court, and every one of the past five administrations have
contemplated he would.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\18\ United States v. Texas, 599 U.S. 670; see also Arizona v.
United States, 567 U.S. 387, 396 (2012) (``Federal officials, as an
initial matter, must decide whether it makes sense to pursue removal at
all'').
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
iii. congress has sweeping constitutional power to remedy border
security
The first and most important remedy the Constitution provides to
address perceived failings of the President and the Executive branch
remains the separation of powers--including Congress' Constitutional
authority to effect policy change itself. When it comes to immigration
in particular, the Supreme Court has long described Congressional power
in the field as ``plenary.''\19\ Article I of the Constitution grants
Congress a range of both specific authorities--to regulate foreign
commerce and to set the terms and conditions by which a foreign
national may become a U.S. citizen--and sweeping authorities to
``provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United
States,'' and to ``make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper''
for carrying out its duties. U.S. Const., Art. I, sec. 8. And Congress
of course may enact legislation delegating some of its own authority to
the Executive, tasking it with carrying out statutory duties as
interpreted by the courts. Of at least as much significance is the
Constitution's parallel requirement in the Article I, Section 9
Appropriations Clause, providing: ``No Money shall be drawn from the
Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.'' As
reflected in these and other express provisions of the Constitution,
Congress' ``power of the purse'' is exclusive and is among our
democracy's most fundamental checks on the exercise of Executive
power.\20\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\19\ See, e.g., Kleindienst v. Mandel, 408 U.S. 753, 766 (1972)
(sustaining Congress's `plenary power to make rules for the admission
of aliens and to exclude those who possess those characteristics which
Congress has forbidden').
\20\ See, e.g., THE FEDERALIST NO. 58, at 297-98 (James Madison)
(Ian Shapiro ed., 2009) (describing Congress' power of the purse ``the
most complete and effectual weapon with which any constitution can arm
the immediate representatives of the people, for obtaining a redress of
every grievance, and for carrying into effect every just and salutary
measure'').
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Despite these vast reserves of Constitutional authority, Congress
has at times allowed its own powers to address pressing National
problems to go unused, particularly as it has become increasingly
hamstrung by partisan polarization.\21\ As an important task force of
the American Political Science Association began documenting a decade
ago, nowhere has this effect been more apparent than in Congress'
failure to develop National policy on immigration.\22\ Informed by the
findings of the bipartisan Commission on Immigration Reform, and
introduced by bipartisan members of both chambers, the last significant
piece of comprehensive immigration legislation passed Congress in 1986.
Since then, Congress has established just one other bipartisan
commission of experts on immigration to examine the problems
independently, and based on research and analysis, develop
recommendations for reform.\23\ While there have been multiple efforts
to enact immigration reform legislation since then, including
significant bills in 2005, 2006, 2010, and 2013 that garnered
bipartisan sponsorship, these bills ultimately foundered in the face of
objections from non-moderates in either the House or Senate
chamber.\24\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\21\ See, e.g., NOLAN MCCARTY, POLARIZATION (2019).
\22\ Michael Barber and Nolan McCarty, Causes and Consequences of
Polarization, in NEGOTIATING AGREEMENT IN POLITICS: TASK FORCE REPORT
OF THE AMERICAN POLITICAL SCIENCE ASSOCIATION 39 (Mansbridge & Martin,
eds. 2013) (citing The Immigration Reform and Control Act, Pub. L. No.
99-603 (1986)).
\23\ The Jordan Commission was established in 1990 and concluded
its work by 1997. Commission on Legal Immigration Reform, P.L. 101-
649,104 Stat. 5001, November 29, 1990.
\24\ See id., at 39-40; see also Carmines & Folwer, The Temptation
of Executive Authority, 24 IND. J. GLOBAL LEGAL STUD. 369 (2017)
(describing various legislative initiatives).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Without taking a position on the wisdom of any particular policy
initiative now under consideration, it is apparent that multiple pieces
of legislation with bipartisan sponsorship are today pending in the
House,\25\ and multiple press reports indicate that very active
negotiations seeking bipartisan agreement on border security matters
are likewise now under way in the Senate.\26\ While use of the
impeachment power here will, for the reasons noted above, address none
of the serious policy concerns the Majority Reports raise, use of the
legislative power to enact relevant reforms might. The Framers of the
Constitution well understood the acute difficulty of embracing
compromise with their domestic political opponents. But for the purpose
of actually addressing the needs and concerns of the American people,
this process remains the most powerful tool the Constitution provides.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\25\ See, e.g., H.R. 5856--The Frederick Douglass Trafficking
Victims Prevention and Protection Reauthorization Act of 2023
(introduced Sept. 29, 2023).
\26\ See, e.g., Julia Ainsley, et al., ``Negotiators Consider
Expanding Expedited Deportations as Border Talks Near `Finish Line,' ''
NBCNEWS, Jan. 13, 2024, available https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/
immigration/negotiators-consider-expanding-expedited-deportations-
border-talks-fin-rcna133571.
Chairman Green. Thank you, Ms. Pearlstein.
Members will be recognized by order of seniority for their
5 minutes of questioning. An additional round of questioning
may be called after all Members have been recognized.
I now recognize myself for 5 minutes of questioning.
Ms. Pearlstein, in 2019, on a New York public radio
podcast, you were asked what you took away from a Congressional
hearing on impeachment standards. Your response was as follows:
[From audio recording: ``So, this is an exchange that came out of and
really belonged in the panel in which the Constitutional law professors
were appearing, and there the professors were reasonably uniform,
right, in recognizing that it doesn't have to be a crime. That is to
say, an impeachable offense doesn't have to be a crime as currently
embodied in the Federal Criminal Code as enacted by Congress. The
existing criminal laws didn't exist when the Framers wrote the
Constitution, and indeed, crimes as such weren't what the Framers had
in mind when they put impeachment into the Constitution. What they were
thinking about with the impeachment remedy were serious offenses
against the public trust. That is, certain things that only the
President and other senior officials could do that abused their
authority. In other words, the idea of abuse of power is sort of the--
--'']
Chairman Green. Do you still stand by those words? Just a
yes or no. Quick question.
Ms. Pearlstein. It is absolutely the case. The Congress
doesn't have to show a violation of----
Chairman Green. OK.
Ms. Pearlstein [continuing]. Title 18 of the U.S. Code. It
has to show that there was a high crime or misdemeanor.
Chairman Green. Reclaiming my time. I think the words that
are very interesting to me is ``serious offenses against the
public trust.''
Ms. Nobles, Ms. Dunn, do you think that our open border
policies, which have allowed fentanyl to pour into this
country, 1.8 million gotaways, unknown gotaways, is an offense
against the public trust of this country?
Ms. Nobles. Yes, definitely.
Chairman Green. Ms. Dunn.
Mrs. Dunn. Yes.
Chairman Green. Ms. Nobles, the committee has been
focused--well, first, before I ask your question, one of the
things that was very interesting in your opening statement, Ms.
Pearlstein, was about the power of--the separation of powers.
You talk about Congress having the remedy to make laws to fix
the immigration issue and the border issue. But see, we passed
a law that says shall detain. Mr. Mayorkas has basically
completely reversed that.
So you are right. We could pass more laws. In fact, we
tried. We passed H.R. 2, but it won't pass the Senate because
they refuse to take it up. But, yes, we have the power to pass
more laws. They are not even following the laws that are
already written. That, from my standpoint, is basically a
refusal to understand the separation of powers, that we write
the laws and they enforce them. But the Secretary doesn't seem
to care about that nor does he seem to care about the four
court orders which have told him he is doing that and said
cease and desist with these policies that are absolutely
subverting the law. He refused to follow those court orders.
Ms. Nobles, the committee has been focused on the Biden
administration's refusal to secure our Southwest Border and vet
alien arrivals. A report from the House Judiciary Committee
pointed out multiple vetting failures with your daughter's
killer. Its report shows that your daughter's murderer was
arrested for association with the MS-13 well before he came to
the United States, something the United States officials
verified easily after the murder occurred. The report also
noted that the alien was released after he was arrested for
murder.
Do you think that Secretary Mayorkas has done an adequate
job of vetting illegal aliens coming across our Southern
Border?
Ms. Nobles. No. May I say that it took the local detectives
to find out that he was an MS-13 gang member. Homeland Security
and Department of Health and Human Services did not know that
until after he killed my daughter. Then they try to write it in
there after the fact, but it was already let out that they
failed to know that he was an MS-13 gang member.
Chairman Green. Ms. Dunn, do you believe Secretary Mayorkas
genuinely cares about the well-being and safety of U.S.
citizens like your daughter, considering that his actions are
directly responsible for aggravating and fueling the on-going
fentanyl crisis?
Mrs. Dunn. Absolutely not.
Chairman Green. Thank you. I yield.
I now recognize the Ranking Member for his 5 minutes of
questioning.
Mr. Thompson. Thank you very much.
Let me say from the outset, every opportunity to provide
resources for the Department of Homeland Security, Democrats on
this committee have always given them what they have asked. The
majority of Republicans on this committee, they have not given
them resources. So when we interview people in the Department,
the No. 1 issue that comes up is we need more resources,
technology, sometimes manpower, sometimes just the ability to
interdict. That is what we try to provide on a regular basis. I
encourage my colleagues that when the next opportunity comes to
fund the Department, let's listen to the men and women who work
in the Department who say they need the resources, and let's
give it to them.
Professor Pearlstein, last week you joined two dozen of the
country's most knowledgeable Constitutional lawyers on a
bipartisan letter to Speaker Johnson and Chairman Green
explaining that the Republican case against Secretary Mayorkas
is unjustified as a matter of Constitutional law. Can you
explain in simple terms why you and your colleagues concluded
that impeaching the Secretary is unjustified under the
Constitution?
Ms. Pearlstein. Thank you, Mr. Ranking Member.
Yes. The term ``high crimes and misdemeanors,'' which is
what's at issue here, is a limited term of art. It includes
only those offenses against the system of government, not
ordinary crimes, offenses against the structure of Government
comparable to treason and bribery, offenses that interfere in
the way the Government works. The allegations that have been
set forth here, which are very serious, are profound complaints
about the policies that the current Secretary has pursued.
They're policies that the Secretary has pursued under the
current President of the United States, who appointed the
Secretary and was elected to pursue those policies.
Policy differences, and I agree with my colleague at the
last hearing, no matter how profound are exactly not what
impeachment was meant to be for. The Framers were very worried
that impeachment would become something like a tool of the
parliamentary system so that Congress could, in essence, hold
the President and the President's administration on a leash.
The Framers wanted each branch to remain independent to make
their own policy judgments so that their ambition could
counteract ambition, and they would fight each other on
democratic terms over what the right answer was.
Mr. Thompson. Thank you very much.
I also want to talk to you about how Republicans and
Democrats on this committee can work together to strengthen
border security and address the opioid crisis. Democrats agree
about the need for action to help families like those on our
panel today and prevent further tragedies.
Professor, in your testimony, you say, ``The first and most
important remedy the Constitution will provide to address
perceived failings of the President and Executive branch
remains the separation of powers, including Congress'
Constitutional authority to effect policy change itself.'' In
other words, if the Congress doesn't like what an
administration is doing, the Constitution gives its power to
pass laws to direct a different course of action.
Can you explain the power Congress has under the
Constitution to effect change?
Ms. Pearlstein. Thank you. Congress has the most power of
any branch in the Government to affect change. It has, under
Article I, the exclusive power to spend any money and allocate
resources on behalf of the United States. It also has the other
powers that I listed in my opening remarks. Critically, while
it does have the power to pass laws, sweeping laws, and has, it
is also subject to the rule of the Supreme Court, which has, in
the allegations at issue here, twice rejected the arguments
that were noted by the Chairman moments ago, that, in fact,
there was a violation of law here. Those laws remain on the
books, and Congress can do additional things, principally
through funding, but not exclusively, to make them even
stronger.
Mr. Thompson. Thank you. I yield back.
Chairman Green. The gentleman yields.
I now recognize the Chairman of the Committee on Foreign
Affairs--House Committee on Foreign Affairs, the gentleman from
Texas, Mr. McCaul, for 5 minutes.
Mr. McCaul. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks for holding
this powerful hearing.
I was a Federal prosecutor. I was deputy attorney general
for the State of Texas for criminal justice. I worked with the
victims of crime. That is what we do. We talk a lot about facts
and figures, about the border, you know, statistics. But your
stories are the most powerful because they are real-life
stories about the impact of this man's violation of the public
trust.
I agree with your podcast that it doesn't have to be a
Federal statute because they didn't have a lot of Federal
statutes from the Founding Fathers who were at the
Constitutional Convention. In fact, the Supreme Court recently
held that impeachment is a tool Congress can use to hold this
Secretary accountable. It is the legal justification.
I believe he has violated his oath. He has violated the
public trust. He has violated your daughters. I intend to
personally uphold my oath to my country that I took in office.
It has been a dereliction of duty of the grossest
proportions I have seen in my 25 years of dealing with this
border.
Ms. Dunn, I could agree that fentanyl is a weapon of mass
destruction. I passed a bill out of my committee defining it as
such. It comes from China and they make it in Mexico. They kill
our children here, 200,000 more than Vietnam, World War II. My
children have been to 6 funerals now. I have seen it personally
the destruction it does every 5 minutes. It is a fentanyl
superhighway, and this border policy is personally responsible
for it.
He took an oath to defend and protect the Constitution and
the American people, air, land, and sea, from enemies foreign
and domestic. Ms. Dunn, do you believe he violated that oath?
Mrs. Dunn. Yes, sir. I flew from Arizona to meet him and
face him and ask him why, and he's not here today. I did not
know that until after I landed yesterday.
Mr. McCaul. He doesn't have the decency----
Mrs. Dunn. No.
Mr. McCaul [continuing]. To even show up----
Mrs. Dunn. That is correct.
Mr. McCaul [continuing]. And talk to you personally.
Mrs. Dunn. Today is my daughter's birthday. I would have
much rather been home with my poor husband grieving her. I
didn't need to be here today. So whatever he's doing, I hope
it's more important than that.
Mr. McCaul. Well, let me say I'm sorry.
Mrs. Dunn. Thank you.
Mr. McCaul. Because apparently the Secretary doesn't care
to show up and say that to you. Do you know he is meeting with
Mexican officials today?
Mrs. Dunn. Exactly.
Mr. McCaul. How does that make you feel?
Mrs. Dunn. Oh, you have no idea how I feel.
Mr. McCaul. I will be meeting with Mexican officials later
next week, and I am going to have a different story for them. I
am going to have your story that I will take to them.
Ms. Nobles, God, you know, these gangbangers come in and
they join trafficking organizations. They are being sent to
families that don't exist because it is a trafficking
organization in the United States. This one man who deserves
impeachment has created a criminal enterprise in the United
States of America. Eight million encounters. What are we going
to do with all these millions of people with no legal status
who can't get a real job? So what do they do? It is drugs,
gangbanging, murder.
Now, I have seen it in my career, and they are the worst.
It sickens me what happened to your daughter. You must relive
it in your head every single day what she went through, what
your poor daughter had to experience that day. Do you hold Mr.
Mayorkas personally accountable for the death of your daughter?
Ms. Nobles. Yes, I do.
Mr. McCaul. I do, too. That is why he needs to be
impeached.
Do you hold him personally accountable for what he did? Do
you hold him personally accountable for the policies he
established which violated the public trust and ended up in the
death of your daughter?
Ms. Nobles. Yes.
Mr. McCaul. Yet he doesn't have the decency or the guts to
show up to you today and say, I am sorry, did he?
Ms. Nobles. No, he did not. I mean, she was killed 3 days
after her 20th birthday. She spent 3 days being 20. I sent her
a message on her birthday, on July 24, that I was proud of the
woman that she was becoming and that I love her. I didn't know
that would be my last message of telling her that I love her.
She even bought herself--I even gave her the money to buy her a
JoJo Siwa cake because that is who she loved. She had autism
and she loved JoJo, and her life was brutally taken. She had no
idea what to expect that day when she went to bed after getting
off the night shift of work and went to sleep in her own bed
and had no idea what was going to happen on July 27.
Mr. McCaul. Let me just close by saying I have a daughter
that is your daughter's age. She has a cat named Snickers. I
know your daughter had a cat named Oreo. This is the personal
side of this chaos created by this man. This is a personal life
story of the cause-and-effect that has happened because of
these failed policies on the border. It is destruction and it
is death and it has to stop.
With that, I yield.
Chairman Green. The gentleman yields.
I now recognize the gentlelady from Texas, Ms. Jackson Lee,
for her 5 minutes of questioning.
Ms. Jackson Lee. As a mother, I would like to begin by
offering my sincere condolences to Ms. Dunn and Ms. Nobles for
the devastating losses that they and their families have
experienced. No amount of sympathy and thank yous can
compensate for the loss. No one should ever have to experience
the loss of a child. So please know that we are committed to
making our communities safer and combating the heinousness of
drug trafficking and other violence that comes from those that
should not be in this country and should not take advantage of
the innocent people who are here, which includes your children.
Mr. Chairman, the stories of Ms. Dunn and Ms. Nobles are
gut-wrenching. They are clearly for any of us, we cannot stand
in their shoes, no matter how much we try to empathize, try to
seem like we are standing in their shoes, try to use language
that would create hysteria, to seem like we have the same pain.
Nobody, no one can express the pain that a parent that has lost
a child can feel. It is gut-wrenching.
But you brought them here, unfortunately, where our
solutions may not be the solutions that they seek under the
false pretense that impeaching Secretary Mayorkas would in any
way prevent what happened to their children from happening to
someone else's. It wouldn't and I think you know that.
What is worse is that the Republicans on this committee are
not leveling with Americans about the actions that they have
taken or not taken to secure the border and combat drug
trafficking. The truth is, at every opportunity, Republicans at
the Federal and State level have pursued policies--politics
over policy and obstructed efforts to improve conditions at the
border.
We need more resources and we need more skilled personnel.
We need more ways to keep bad guys out of here to ensure the
protection of the innocent, precious children of these two
mothers.
In Washington, all but 9 of my Republican colleagues voted
against the fiscal year 2023 omnibus, which provided much-
needed increases on Custom and Border Protection funding to
increase personnel along the border and improve fentanyl
detection. Republicans have refused to act on the President's
supplement request, sitting right here waiting for us to act,
which would provide additional resources not only for CBP, but
also for communities receiving migrants. Instead of considering
politics, policies to improve security along the border or
prevent drug trafficking and treat fentanyl addiction, we are
willing--are sitting here today at a futile impeachment
proceeding.
We need to give hope to these parents. We need to give love
that shows action.
So let me quickly ask Professor Pearlstein, Republicans
have argued that the Secretaries should be impeached for
failing to secure the border, yet most of them have voted
against funding for border security that the administration
requested. If Republicans really wanted to secure the border,
is it more effective to provide the funding that the
administration has requested or to impeach the Secretary?
Let me add this question as well, if you can incorporate
both of these. As I noted, the Governor of Texas has blocked
Border Patrol from entering areas along the U.S.-Mexico border.
If Republicans really wanted Border Patrol to improve
enforcement along the Southwest Border, does it make sense to
exclude Border Patrol from areas surrounding the border? In
fact, we lost a mother and two children just recently. Do you
believe a State can do that under the Constitution? Thank you,
Doctor. This question is for you.
Ms. Pearlstein. Thank you, Representative Jackson Lee.
I can't speak to policy effectiveness. It is certainly
within Congress' power today, in the Republican side as well as
the Democratic side, to vote appropriations that would actually
support programs for fentanyl addiction and programs that would
support families who've lost loved ones to any of these.
I can't speak to the details of what's happening on the
border today, but the general rule of the Constitution is
Federal law under the Constitution is the supreme law of the
land. State efforts to interfere with Federal efforts to
enforce border laws are unconstitutional.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Let me just quickly say, Mr. Chairman,
this impeachment proceeding is not going where we want it to
go. We want to help these parents. We want to cry out for them,
but we want to give them solutions. We want to focus on a
border security mission with the resources that Congress has
afforded the Department and within the confines of the law.
My Republican colleagues would rather deprive DHS of the
reasonableness and resources it needs to carry out its border
security mission so that it can attack the Secretary, who
himself, I have seen, show great remorse for the losses of
individuals. Impeaching him, is that the answer to saving our
children?
I would hope that we would come together, stand together to
be outraged over the loss of anyone's precious, precious child
and stand united as the American people to fight against this
dastardly act of drugs and viciousness at the border and make
our borders safe for Americans and as well as those who come to
this country for the right reasons. All of them are our
neighbors who live in the southern part of the United States.
They are our neighbors, and we should try to find a way, but we
should not ignore the pain of these parents. We can do both.
We do not have to make a mockery of impeachment. We can
work with the Department of Homeland Security and our Secretary
of Homeland Security and this President who cares.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield.
Chairman Green. The gentlelady yields.
I now recognize Mr. Higgins for his 5 minutes of questions.
Mr. Higgins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, our Southern Border, under the control of
Secretary Mayorkas, is 1,954 miles of failure. Ten million
illegal crossings in 3 years, the disintegration of American
sovereignty, total loss of American law and order, exponential
enhancement of cartel human trafficking operations and cartel
narcotics trafficking, millions of American families crushed by
financial loss, and the unspeakable grief of unprecedented loss
of American lives to drugs and violent crime. This is the
legacy of Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
As God is my witness, we will impeach that man in this
committee. We will hold him accountable for his colossal
failure. We will take no pleasure in doing so, because it
closes the chapter of a disastrous era of American history. We
have largely lost our country down there. This body should be
discussing sending massive military aid to Texas, not to
Ukraine.
Ms. Nobles, Mrs. Dunn, I lost a daughter long ago. It is a
club nobody wants to join. I listened. It was difficult to
listen to your testimony. I read your submitted testimony. The
message that I received is that your daughters are perfected,
and they are very, very proud of you both. I promise you, we
will hold Secretary Mayorkas accountable and further the
administration that he serves.
Ms. Nobles, I am going to ask you to reflect upon a
particular policy that the Biden administration and Secretary
Mayorkas pursues. The Department of Homeland Security and the
Department of Health and Human Services have systems in place
to ``ensure'' that unaccompanied alien children from
noncontiguous countries are transferred from Customs and Border
Protection to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, ORR. But the
House Judiciary report regarding your daughter's murder notes
that the Office of Refugee Resettlement, ORR, had lost track of
more than 85,000 children and placed fewer than 15,000 follow-
up calls, calls, not personal visits, after discharging an
additional 32,000 children. Now, at no point did anyone under
Secretary Mayorkas' command flag the violent criminal that
murdered your daughter.
Ms. Nobles. No.
Mr. Higgins. Had a criminal gang history, along with
multiple MS-13 tattoos. What would your daughter say about a
Secretary of Department of Homeland Security who facilitates a
system that has lost over 100,000 children, mostly young
teenage girls? Mrs. Nobles.
Ms. Nobles. Sorry, what was your question?
Mr. Higgins. What would your daughter say about over
100,000 lost teenage children of God? A system run like that.
Ms. Nobles. She would be--I'm sure she'd be very upset.
Mr. Higgins. Her heart would break for those children,
would it not?
Ms. Nobles. Yes.
Mr. Higgins. Americans just like her require action, and
that is what this committee will deliver.
Mr. Chairman, my time has expired.
Mr. LaLota [presiding]. The gentlemen's time has expired.
The gentleman from California, Mr. Correa, is recognized
for 5 minutes.
Mr. Correa. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First of all, let me thank our witnesses for being here
today. Ms. Dunn, Ms. Nobles, I am also a father, like many of
us here, represent an area a lot of hardworking Americans
surviving day to day. When my four kids were growing up we
invested a lot of time and effort. Little League, Little League
Basketball, keeping them away from that bad stuff.
I remember a story, my fellow father, another father in
Little League, his kid was a gifted athlete. He was going to be
the next major league player. His dad was there every day,
pitching to him bucket after bucket of baseballs. Then one day,
they stopped showing up. Later on, I found out that that young
man and his dad started going to drug rehab. That son had come
under the spell of hard drugs, and I have never seen them
again.
Stories like yours, I wish I could say, were not--were
uncommon in my district. But I have heard them way too many
times. Each one that I hear, your story, is of pain and
suffering. In my district, we live through heroin addicts, the
cocaine surge, crack, PCP, and now fentanyl, the worst of all.
This is the reason why all of us here at the Federal level,
Democrats, Republicans, on both houses, with the President,
have to stop bickering, have to stop fighting, come together to
protect middle America in this country.
Ma'am, when it comes to fentanyl, you said Arizona, 50
percent. I will tell you, I have been to the border. I have
talked to our CBP officers. They tell me 65 percent of all the
fentanyl crosses through the San Ysidro port of entry. Just one
port. It goes north through my county, and that is why we have
so many problems in our area.
You have one set of numbers, CBP has another set of
numbers, but it is a challenge that we have to address. CBP, in
2019, we had seizure of 2,800 pounds; 2019, we had over 27,000
pounds that CBP has seized, 800 percent increase. But based on
those border officers, this is about 10 percent of what is
coming through. They say about 10 percent, 90 percent probably
still gets through.
I have asked those border officers, what do you need to do
your job better? You know what they have told me? We need more
resources. We need more personnel. When those officers tell me
I am working 16-hour shifts, we need more personnel, we have to
respond with more resources. It is not Lou. It is the men and
women at the border telling us what they need.
So, Professor Pearlstein, their dereliction of duty is not
an impeachable offense. Correct? Correct?
Ms. Pearlstein. [Nonverbal response.]
Mr. Correa. The amount of seizures at the border, I would
say, shows that somebody is doing their job there. It is just a
lot.
What is better for us to do? Fight over an impeachment or
respond to President Biden's ask for additional resources at
the border, in your opinion?
Ms. Pearlstein. Impeachment will have no impact on
resources available to the border. It will have no impact on
the policies pursued by this administration at all.
Funding change, the appropriation of money for additional
officers, for example, to improve fentanyl seizure operations,
based on what you've described, certainly might have any effect
and indeed may be a good effect. Impeachment has none.
Mr. Correa. I will just ask my colleagues here today, let's
get it together. Surge resources to the border. Make sure we
stop fentanyl from crossing into our country. Every day that we
debate over funding levels is another day that more Americans
die from fentanyl.
Mr. Chairman, thank you, and I yield.
Mr. LaLota. The gentleman yields.
The gentleman from Mississippi, Mr. Guest, is recognized
for 5 minutes.
Mr. Guest. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to rebut a little bit the argument that has been
made by my colleagues on the other side, that Republicans
aren't willing to secure resources for the border. I will just
tell you that that is a complete, absolute misstatement of
fact.
In September, the House of Representatives passed an
appropriations package for the Department of Homeland Security
that appropriated an additional $2 billion. Those funds would
go to hire additional agents. Those funds would go to merit
pay. Those funds would go to invest in additional technology to
stop the flow of fentanyl coming into this country. We also
passed H.R. 2, which would have done the exact same thing.
So for my colleagues on the other aisle to say we should be
more focused on funding DHS than what we are doing here today,
I would argue that we have done that. We passed our
appropriations bill. We sent it to the Senate and Chuck Schumer
has let that bill sit there gathering dust, refusing to bring
either H.R. 2 or the House appropriations bill to the Senate
for a vote. So for them to say that is a complete and utter
misstatement of the facts.
Professor Pearlstein, I do agree with you in your statement
where you said that we do not have to have a violation of the
Federal Criminal Code for impeachment and agree with you when
you say serious offenses against public trust would arise to
the level of impeachment. Prior to being elected to Congress, I
served as a prosecutor in my local community, tried many jury
trials. I remember, often hearing the judges tell potential
jurors that reasonable, good-minded people can reach different
conclusions when applying facts to the law.
The law in this case, I believe, is the Constitution, the
impeachment clause, that we, as reasonable Members of Congress,
must apply the facts. The facts as I view them, and they may be
different than viewed by other Members of Congress, everyone
views those using their own perspective, I believe that there
is ample evidence. I believe that Secretary Mayorkas violated
his oath to protect and defend the Constitution. I believe that
Secretary Mayorkas has willfully failed to enforce the law,
particularly the INA, where it says repeatedly that the
Secretary shall detain and remove immigrants. I believe that
Secretary Mayorkas has lied to Congress when he has repeatedly
come in and said that the border is secure.
I will tell you an example. Just last year, in April of
last year, as Secretary Mayorkas came and he sat there where
you were sitting, Ms. Dunn, I had the opportunity to ask him,
are all 9 sectors of the Southwest Border secure? His answer
was yes.
Now, his answer contradicted the answer given just 3 weeks
prior by his chief of Border Patrol, Chief Ortiz, when Chief
Ortiz said, 5 of the 9 sectors on our Southwest Border are not
secure.
So I believe he has violated his oath to protect and defend
the Constitution. I believe that he has willfully failed to
enforce a law, and I believe that he has lied to Congress.
Now, Professor, I see in your statement that you provided,
you say that really only on two occasions, back in 1904--excuse
me, 1804 and 1872, where you had the removal of two U.S.
district judges, where they were removed, one because one was
chronically inebriated and the other was mentally
incapacitated, and you said that they were unable to carry out
their duties because of that. I believe that a person who
willfully chooses not to carry out their duties is more
impeachable than someone who has some sort of mental inability
to do so. I believe that the record is clear if you look at
what this committee has done to show that Secretary Mayorkas
has refused to carry those duties out.
Now, I want to ask you, because you clearly say in your
report, Professor, that you have given, that Congress--that
there appears to be no Constitutional basis for pursuing this
impeachment. My question is relating to a different impeachment
matter. Did you feel that way last Congress for the two
impeachments of President Trump? Did you feel that there was a
Constitutional basis for the impeachment of Donald Trump,
either his first or second impeachment?
Ms. Pearlstein. I did.
Mr. Guest. OK. So this matter differs in Secretary Mayorkas
from both the first and second impeachment of the former
President?
Ms. Pearlstein. Yes.
Mr. Guest. In what manner?
Ms. Pearlstein. Several. First, although I've heard now
several times the allegation here that Secretary Mayorkas was,
in some respect, violating his legal responsibility. Those
claims, the specific claims you've raised about detention,
enforcement, power, were raised and litigated all the way up to
the Supreme Court by the State of Texas twice.
Mr. Guest. Ms. Pearlstein, let me ask, can reasonable
people----
Ms. Pearlstein. And the Supreme Court ruled against----
Mr. Guest. Can reasonable people----
Ms. Pearlstein [continuing]. That argument.
Mr. Guest. Can reasonable people look at the facts and draw
different conclusions?
Ms. Pearlstein. Reasonable people can't draw different
conclusions about the law as applied here.
Mr. Guest. You have to apply the law to the facts. I
understand. I don't believe that there is consensus----
Mr. LaLota. Excuse me.
Mr. Guest [continuing]. That your version of what you
believe the law is, is actually not----
Mr. LaLota. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Guest. I yield back. Thank you.
Mr. LaLota. The gentlewoman from Texas, Ms. Jackson Lee is
recognized for the purpose of entering something into the
record.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will ask
unanimous consent to submit into the record an article, ``Why
America is struggling to stop the fentanyl epidemic,'' and an
article that says how fentanyl crisis fourth wave has hit every
corner of the United States. I ask unanimous consent to place
those in the record.
Mr. LaLota. Without objection, so ordered.
[The information follows:]
Article From Foreign Affairs
why america is struggling to stop the fentanyl epidemic
Last Updated: May 15, 2023
By: Vanda Felbab-Brown
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/mexico/why-america-
struggling-stop-fentanyl-epidemic
The United States is suffering the deadliest drug epidemic in its
history. Overdoses claimed the lives of more than 100,000 Americans
between August 2021 and August 2022 alone. Over the span of just a few
years, drug deaths have doubled. Most of these overdoses invo]ve
fentanyl, which now kills around 200 Americans every day.
To address the crisis, the U.S. Government is not only deploying
law enforcement to crack down on fentanyl dealers but also taking steps
to prevent and treat substance use and the harms it produces. But the
continued growth of the fentanyl epidemic makes clear that these
measures are not enough. Since all fentanyl used in the United States
is produced abroad, stemming the flow of the drug into the country is
essential as well.
So far, such supply-side efforts have run aground. For one thing,
synthetic opioids such as fentanyl can be produced from a wide array of
chemicals, many of which also have legitimate commercial uses. That
means restricting the supply of these chemicals is difficult and
impractical. What is more, when regulators ban or restrict synthetic
opioids or their ingredients, producers simply tweak their recipes.
Less talked about, but just as consequential, are the geopolitical
obstacles that make it so hard for the U.S. Government to plug the
supply channels. Most of the world's fentanyl and its precursor
chemicals come from China or Mexico, countries whose current policies
and priorities make effective control of fentanyl production very
difficult. U.S. law enforcement cooperation with China, which was
limited to begin with, has in recent years collapsed altogether. Absent
a reset in U.S.-Chinese relations, that is unlikely to change. The
Mexican government, too, has eviscerated law enforcement cooperation
with the United States. Although a series of high-level bilateral
meetings in April may have opened a path to increased cooperation down
the line, it is far from clear if they will lead to substantive action
from Mexican authorities.
But there is much more that the Biden administration can do.
Washington still has unexplored options at its disposal to induce
stronger cooperation from Chinese and Mexican authorities, for instance
by combining constructive proposals with the threat of sanctions
against State and private actors in those countries. It can also adopt
additional intelligence and law enforcement measures of its own, with
or without foreign cooperation. It is high time that Washington take
action on this front. If it does not, the record death rates that
fentanyl is causing today will be eclipsed by even higher ones
tomorrow.
Made in China
U.S. officials have long understood that cutting off fentanyl
production at its source means cutting it off in China. Since 2015,
they have pushed Beijing to tighten controls on fentanyl-class drugs
and to get serious about enforcing them. Initially, those efforts
seemed to bear fruit. In 2019, China began to place restrictions on the
entire class of synthetic opioids, and it has since extended those laws
to the main precursor chemicals used in synthetic opioid production.
For a while, the United States and China even worked together on drug
busts. In 2019, Chinese authorities in Hebei Province used U.S.
intelligence to arrest and convict 9 traffickers for mailing fentanyl
straight to consumers and dealers in the United States.
Since then, however, Chinese traffickers have evaded controls by
rerouting their operations through Mexico. Unlike drugs such as
methamphetamine, which remain firmly in the hands of Chinese organized
crime syndicates, the production chain for fentanyl often starts with
small and middle-level players in the country's chemical and
pharmaceutical industries, including the odd mom-and-pop outfit. These
seemingly legitimate businesses ship fentanyl precursors to Chinese or
Mexican drug cartels. The cartels synthesize the chemicals into
finished fentanyl and then move it onto the U.S. market.
It is hard for outsiders to get a clear view of the current state
of China's domestic drug enforcement. But there have been no high-
profile Chinese prosecutions since the 2019 trial in Hebei; neither
does Beijing appear to be doing anything to stem the flow of precursor
chemicals to Mexican cartels. This inaction is no accident. The arrests
in Hebei took place when Beijing still hoped for a broader thaw in
relations with Washington. As that hope has eroded, so has China's
willingness to coordinate with U.S. authorities on the opioid front.
Put simply, Beijing thinks of counternarcotics collaboration as
downstream from its geostrategic relations. Unlike the U.S. Government,
which seeks to delink the issue from geopolitics, China views the
fentanyl crisis through the lens of its growing rivalry with the United
States. It did so even before last year's visit by then U.S. House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan, after which China formally ended all
law enforcement cooperation with the United States. U.S. punitive
measures against China, such as sanctions and indictments, are unlikely
to change this. Even in Southeast Asia and the Pacific, where Beijing
takes drug trafficking very seriously, its engagement with foreign
authorities tends to be highly selective, self-serving, and
subordinated to its geopolitical interests.
At home and abroad, the Chinese government rarely takes action
against the top echelons of crime syndicates unless they infringe on a
narrow set of core state interests. These criminal groups provide a
variety of services to legal businesses, including to firms with ties
to government officials and the Chinese Communist Party. Efforts to
better regulate precursor chemicals and fentanyl analogs are also
hampered by systemic corruption and the incentive structures within
which Chinese officials operate.
Taken together, these conditions leave plenty of room for Chinese
criminal networks to expand their scope and reach, including in the
Americas. There are signs that Chinese fishing vessels in Latin
American waters sometimes carry drugs and precursor chemicals. What is
clear is that Chinese actors play a significant role in laundering
money for Mexican cartels through informal financial and trade
networks. Of particular note is the rise of payment in kind: in
exchange for drug precursors, Mexican cartels provide Chinese
traffickers with coveted black-market products, especially timber and
protected wildlife. The potential damage to economic sustainability,
food security, and global biodiversity is severe--not to mention the
potential for the global spread of zoonotic diseases.
Stuck in the Fifties
Although relations with Mexico have not deteriorated to the same
degree, U.S. drug policy there faces serious obstacles as well. The
collapse of the rule of law in Mexico goes far beyond the human toll of
its drug war, which has killed more than 30,000 Mexicans every year
since 2017--not counting the more than 112,000 people that went missing
during the same period. In addition to controlling the drug trade, the
cartels have expanded their extortion rackets and have even come to
dominate parts of the country's formal economy. They now have a hand in
agriculture, fisheries, logging, mining, and the water supply. Their
assault on state power and civil society has taken on new, more brazen
forms, too, including increasingly aggressive attempts to influence
elections and infiltrate state institutions.
Upon taking office in 2018, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez
Obrador pledged that he would address the spiraling crisis with ``hugs,
not bullets.'' By this, he meant social and economic measures to better
address the structural forces driving many young people into the hands
of the cartels. But besides creating a new National Guard--the latest
in a long series of haphazard institutional reshuffles in the Mexican
security forces--Lopez Obrador has never articulated any clear vision
of how to stabilize the situation in the shorter term.
The Mexican government's hope, it seems, is that if it lets the
cartels duke it out among themselves, they will eventually reach a
balance of forces and the violence will subside. But the conflict that
is causing much of the bloodshed--a brutal war for primacy between the
Sinaloa Cartel and its main rival, the Cartel Jalisco Nueva
Generacion--has not abated. If anything, it has intensified and spread
to other parts of Latin America, even as far as Chile.
To make matters worse, Mexico has systematically hollowed out
cooperation with U.S. law enforcement. Lopez Obrador blames U.S.
pressure on the cartels for fanning the violence, and his 1950's vision
of politics and foreign affairs revolves around limiting any
noneconomic U.S. presence in his country. In 2020, when the United
States arrested Salvador Cienfuegos, Mexico's former secretary of
defense, for colluding with a vicious drug cartel, Lopez Obrador
threatened to expel all U.S. law enforcement personnel and end all
cooperation with U.S. authorities. Washington bent backward to assuage
him, handing Cienfuegos back to Mexico, where he was promptly
acquitted. But the Mexican government has since passed a national-
security law that further hobbles cooperation with U.S. agents. In
March, Lopez Obrador started claiming that no fentanyl is cooked in
Mexico, a falsehood roundly debunked not just by the U.S. Justice
Department but also by parts of his own government. In recent weeks, he
once again threatened to expel U.S. agents from Mexico.
With the Mexican government also threatening to withdraw from the
Merida Initiative, a bilateral framework for security cooperation that
had been in place since December 2008, the U.S. Government worked hard
to negotiate a successor agreement. Mexican officials, however, have
interpreted the new framework very narrowly: the United States should
reduce domestic drug demand, arrest more Mexican fugitives on U.S.
soil, and keep weapons and illicit money from flowing south into
Mexico, while Mexico does what it wants on its side of the border
without letting the United States in on it.
The Mexican government has offered only limited and intermittent
cooperation ever since. Whereas Mexican authorities have kept the U.S.
Drug Enforcement Administration in a deep freeze on their territory,
they have allowed for occasional intelligence sharing and have at times
worked with the investigative branch of the U.S. Department of Homeland
Security. Ultimately, however, the Mexican government is not taking on
the criminal groups and their fentanyl trade. Instead, as a recent
Reuters investigation revealed, it is cooking its reports about
fentanyl lab busts to placate Washington. In any case, the Trump
administration taught Mexico a valuable, albeit unfortunate, lesson:
the United States will give up on a wide range of interests as long as
Mexico suppresses migration flows to the U.S. border. The Biden
administration has not reversed that lesson.
Closing The Doors
At present, the odds of getting more cooperation from either China
or Mexico in the fight against the fentanyl trade are slim. But
Washington must keep on trying. When it comes to Beijing, U.S.
diplomats should play to its desire to be a global counternarcotics
leader in the eyes of the world. China likes to project an image of
being tough on drugs. But it has come under fire from countries in
Southeast Asia for the steady flow of Chinese methamphetamine
precursors into the region, which has set off a devastating drug
epidemic. The United States could team up with these countries, as well
as with Australia and New Zealand, to pressure China in multilateral
forums. Concerted calls on Beijing to take action against synthetic
drugs, implement better monitoring systems even for dual-use
nonscheduled chemicals, and set best practices for its chemical firms
could finally induce China to act.
Among the best practices the United States and others should push
for are self-regulation systems to detect and police suspicious
activities and ``know your customers'' policies. It should continue
demanding that China take down websites that illegally sell synthetic
opioids to Americans or to Mexican criminal groups. And it should
encourage China to adopt more robust anti-money-laundering standards in
its banking and financial systems and trading practices. Washington can
underpin such requests with the threat of sanctions. Punitive measures
could include cutting off noncompliant Chinese firms from the U.S.
market and targeting prominent pharmaceutical and chemical industry
officials. U.S. law enforcement, meanwhile, should indict as many
Chinese traffickers and their companies as possible.
In Mexico, too, U.S. policy can still make a difference, although
not all current proposals are workable. U.S. politicians, such as South
Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, have recommended that the U.S.
Government designate Mexican cartels as foreign terrorist organizations
(FTOs) on top of their current designation as transnational criminal
organizations. Doing so would open the door to more intelligence
gathering and even to U.S. military strikes on fentanyl labs. But the
number of realistic targets would be limited, and striking them would
not hobble the cartels for long. Nor would the FTO designation add
anything to the regime of sanctions and financial intelligence tools
already in place. In fact, it would only complicate U.S. policies in
Mexico.
Instead, the United States could intensify border inspections, even
at the risk of substantially slowing down the legal trade and causing
serious problems for perishable Mexican agricultural exports. Ideally,
U.S.-Mexico law enforcement cooperation would be robust enough to keep
legal border crossings efficient and enable joint inspections far from
the border. But if Mexico refuses to act as a reliable partner, the
United States should intensify border inspections on its own
initiative.
The economic cost of the opioid epidemic--to leave aside its
immeasurable human toll--is simply too enormous to countenance
inaction. In 2020, estimates put that cost at nearly $1.5 trillion. In
contrast, in 2019, U.S. goods and services trade with Mexico totaled
only $677.3 billion, with imports from Mexico at $387.8 billion. As
with China, Washington should develop packages of leverage to
underwrite its demands, including indictment portfolios against Mexican
officials and politicians who sabotage cooperation with the United
States. Instead of shying away from holding to account criminal
officials such as Cienfuegos, the former Mexican defense minister, the
United States should be arresting more of them.
Hit Them Where It Hurts
At the same time, U.S. officials should rethink their own measures
against criminal actors involved in the fentanyl business. Given the
diversified economic portfolios of Mexican and Chinese criminal
networks nowadays, more drug seizures simply will not do. Authorities
need to take aim at the traffickers' entire business empires and try to
cut off their revenue streams wholesale, whether that means going after
poaching and wildlife trafficking, illegal fishing, or other illicit
activities.
That requires bringing on board a wide range of U.S. departments
and agencies for a whole-of-government approach, starting with the U.S.
intelligence agencies, the Department of State, the Department of
Defense, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. By taking a better
look at the various offshoots of the fentanyl trade--the wildlife
trafficking, the illegal fishing, and so forth--the United States would
also get a better picture of the linkages between organized crime and
foreign governments, including China. Greater intelligence sharing
within the U.S. Government would help, as would increasing the role of
Fish and Wildlife special agents in joint anti-organized-crime task
forces. Alongside this effort, wildlife trafficking should be
designated as a predicate offense for wiretap authorizations, which
would empower authorities to start gathering intelligence without
having to prove a link to other crimes a priori.
To get moving down this path would require a change of mindset, but
it would not be particularly costly in absolute or relative terms. It
would certainly amount to a fraction of the cost that an out-of-control
fentanyl epidemic is already exacting on American lives and
communities. Considering what is at stake, only a whole-of-government
approach, at home and abroad, will do justice to the magnitude of the
crisis.
______
Article From BBC News
how the fentanyl crisis' fourth wave has hit every corner of the us
Last Updated: 17th September 2023
By: Nadine Yousif
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-66826895
More Americans than ever are dying from fentanyl overdoses as the
fourth wave of the opioid epidemic crashes through every community, in
every corner of the country.
It was 6 years ago that Kim Blake's son Sean died from an
accidental fentanyl overdose in Burlington, Vermont. He was 27 years
old. ``Every time I hear of a loss to substance use, my heart breaks a
little more,'' Ms. Blake wrote in a blog dedicated to her son in 2021.
``Another family shattered. Forever grieving the loss of dreams and
celebrations.'' That year, the US witnessed a grim milestone: for the
first time ever, drug overdoses killed more than 100,000 people across
the country in one single year.
Of those deaths, more than 66 percent were tied to fentanyl, a
synthetic opioid 50 times more powerful than heroin. Fentanyl is a
pharmaceutical drug that can be prescribed by a doctor to treat severe
pain.
But the drug is also illegally manufactured and sold by criminal
gangs. Most of the illegal fentanyl found in the US is trafficked from
Mexico using chemicals sourced from China, according to the Drug
Enforcement Administration (DEA).
In 2010, less than 40,000 people died from a drug overdose across
the country, and less than 10 percent of those deaths were tied to
fentanyl. Back then, deaths were mostly driven by the use of heroin or
prescription opioids.
The contrast is outlined in a study released this week by
researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) that
examines trends in US overdose deaths from 2010-21 using data compiled
by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
A chart showing how fentanyl is a growing problem in the US,
accounting for more and more overdose deaths over the years.
The data paints a clear picture of how fentanyl has redefined drug
overdoses in America over the last decade.
``The rise of illicitly manufactured fentanyl has ushered in an
overdose crisis in the United States of unprecedented magnitude,'' the
study's authors wrote.
Virtually every corner of the US, from Hawaii to Alaska to Rhode
Island, has been touched by fentanyl.
The rise in fentanyl-related deaths was first observed in 2015, the
data shows. Since then, the drug has spread across the US and death
rates have grown sharply.
``In 2018, around 80 percent of fentanyl overdoses happened east of
the Mississippi river,'' Chelsea Shover, an assistant professor at
UCLA's school of medicine and co-author of the study, told the BBC.
But in 2019, ``fentanyl becomes part of the drug supply in the
Western US, and suddenly this population that had been insulated from
it is exposed, and death rates start to go up,'' Prof Shover said. In
their study, the researchers sound the alarm on another growing trend:
deaths related to the use of fentanyl and another stimulant drug, like
cocaine or methamphetamine.
This trend is being observed across the US, albeit in different
ways owing to drug use patterns that differ from region to region.
For example, researchers found higher death rates related to the
use of fentanyl and cocaine in north-eastern US States, like Vermont
and Connecticut, where cocaine has been traditionally more available.
But for virtually everywhere else in the country, from West
Virginia to California, deaths were primarily driven by the use of both
methamphetamines and fentanyl.
Ms. Blake, who is also a trained physician, said her son
sporadically used cocaine, though his toxicology report revealed only
fentanyl in his system.
She learned that many use fentanyl along with another stimulant for
a prolonged high.
``It's no surprise to me that we're seeing such an increase in
stimulant-opioid combinations,'' Ms. Blake told the BBC.
When fentanyl first arrived in the US as part of the illegal drug
supply, ``a lot of people did not want it'', Prof Shover said. But the
synthetic opiate became widely available as it is cheaper to produce
compared to other drugs.
It is also highly addictive, meaning people who struggle with
substance use and are exposed to it often seek it out to avoid painful
withdrawals. Across the US, the study identified States like Alaska,
West Virginia, Rhode Island, Hawaii and California as having the
highest rates of overdose deaths involving fentanyl and another drug.
These States have historically high rates of drug use, Prof Shover
said. With the arrival of fentanyl, drug use in those areas has become
more lethal.
No longer just a ``white problem''
The opioid crisis has been traditionally portrayed as a ``white
problem'', Prof Shover said.
Her study, however, revealed that African Americans are dying from
a combination of fentanyl and other drug use at higher rates, across
age groups and geographical lines.
For Rasheeda Watts-Pearson, an Ohio-based harm reduction
specialist, the data reflects what she has seen in her region.
She has been doing outreach work with A1 Stigma Free, a grassroots
organization that was founded just 8 months ago to tackle a notable
rise of overdose deaths within the African-American community in
Cincinnati.
As part of her work, Ms Watts-Pearson frequently visits
barbershops, bars and grocery stores to talk to people about the deadly
impacts of fentanyl.
She said she does this because of a lack of awareness, driven
partly by historic healthcare disparities experienced by racial and
ethnic minority groups. Even marketing campaigns made to bring
awareness to the opioid crisis have not included the experience of
black Americans, she said.
``I can drive down Avondale right now, there is a billboard that
says `Opioid Crisis', but there's two white people on that billboard,''
Ms Watts-Pearson said.
A big blind spot for her community has been fentanyl-laced street
drugs, she said, which has led to people unknowingly using the deadly,
synthetic opioid, and developing a dependency to it.
``The coroner's office is seeing people overdose and die off of
cocaine, off of crack, off of pills, with traces of fentanyl,'' she
said. ``It has been infiltrated in the black community now, and not
enough people are talking about it.''
A fourth wave
The lethal use of fentanyl in combination with other drugs has
marked the ``fourth wave'' of the overdose crisis in the US,
researchers have said. And experts like Prof Shover have cautioned that
treatment options in the US for substance use have not kept up.
``Our treatment system for substance use disorder is often focused
on one drug at a time,'' Prof Shover said. ``But the reality is, many
people who use drugs use more than one kind of drug.''
To keep her son's memory alive, Ms. Blake has been outspoken about
her loss and has helped other families go through their grief of losing
a loved one to an overdose.
``Everyone has a story, and for a parent who has lost a child, that
is forever,'' she said.
Her son had been enrolled in treatment a few times during his
battle with substance use disorder.
The experience taught Ms. Blake that care options vary from State
to State, and in many cases, what is available is not enough.
``Ideally, I think we would see something where people would get
treatment rapidly, whenever they want it, and long-term,'' she said.
Ms. Blake also raised the idea of overdose prevention sites, where
people could use drugs safely and under supervision.
Those sites are widely available in Canada--which has its own
fentanyl crisis--but only two sanctioned sites exist in the US. Above
all, Ms Blake has called for compassion and understanding for those who
are struggling with substance use.
``Most people I talk to, their kids did not want to die,'' she
said.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you.
Mr. LaLota. The gentleman from Louisiana, Mr. Carter, is
recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much.
Before I begin, I want to personally thank these brave
witnesses for being here. Our heart goes out to you and your
families for your incredible loss.
We all recognize the significance and the importance of
this matter. It has been brought to my attention that our
Chairman, as we speak, is in the hallway doing an interview
with FOX News instead of listening to the testimony of these
heartbroken parents. I think that demonstrates just where we
should be. We should be here, not talking to talking heads and
feeding into that.
You know, my colleagues have spent the past year blaming
Secretary Mayorkas for long-standing issues like immigration,
drug addiction, crime, and so forth. However, impeachment over
differences in policy is not Constitutional. It also solves
exactly nothing for the problems that we were sent here to
Congress to solve.
It is high time that we, as Members of Congress, must come
together to pass laws that combat fentanyl in our communities
and fund drug treatment programs to help save lives, not to
determine who has the biggest megaphone or the biggest
political voice to exact vengeance. Our job is to serve and to
come up with solutions together, Republican and Democrat, to
solve our Nation's problems.
Professor Pearlstein, would impeaching Secretary Mayorkas
over policy differences between the Biden administration and
House Republicans solve any problems facing our country?
Ms. Pearlstein. I don't believe it would. The President
retains exclusive Constitutional power to replace Secretary
Mayorkas with another official who he would charge with
pursuing exactly the same policies here.
Mr. Carter. Is it a bit disingenuous to suggest that
somehow this is new, the issues that we are facing are new at
the border, and somehow that it was perfect before Secretary
Mayorkas took over?
Ms. Pearlstein. My knowledge, just based on Supreme Court
cases, of the number of cases that have arisen surrounding
Executive actions over border policies, and reading the history
there, suggests that these problems have existed through 5
administrations over decades, largely because Congress has
enacted contradictory laws that are impossible to comply with,
and multiple administrations have struggled to resolve that
contradiction.
Mr. Carter. Many of the Republicans complain that the Biden
administration and Secretary Mayorkas are not doing enough on
immigration, border security, fentanyl, or crime. Professor
Pearlstein, does Congress have any role in resolving these
long-standing issues? If so, please explain.
Ms. Pearlstein. Thank you, Representative. As I've
mentioned before, Congress has a central role. Indeed, the
Supreme Court has repeatedly held, in cases going back more
than a century, that Congress' power in this area is plenary,
meaning absolute. That is not to say that the Executive doesn't
retain under his own Article II authority enforcement power,
but Congress cannot only appropriate funds, it can pose
conditions on funds.
In the opinion folks are so fond of citing in the recent
Supreme Court cases, while impeachment is certainly one power
that Congress has, oversight, appropriations, the legislative
process, Senate confirmations, withholding funds, and, of
course, centrally, elections are old tools that are available
to Congress and to the American people to effect change here.
Mr. Carter. Are withholding funds because you are unhappy
with the Secretary in any way helpful to the issues that these
two grieving mothers have faced and others may continue to
face?
Ms. Pearlstein. I can't imagine that it is.
Mr. Carter. I have got a--Mr. Chairman, I would like to
enter this into the record. ``Synthetic opioid overdose deaths
soared while Trump was President.'' Not my words. This report,
March 2, 2023.
Mr. Higgins [presiding]. Without objection.
[The information follows:]
Article From Forbes
synthetic opioid overdose deaths soared while trump was president
Stuart Anderson, Senior Contributor, Forbes
Mar 2, 2023, 09:22am EST
Updated Mar 2, 2023, 09:30am EST
Overdose deaths from synthetic opioids soared during the time
Donald Trump was president, raising questions about efforts to blame
the Biden administration's border policies for drug overdose deaths.
Data show the Trump administration's decision to close U.S. ports of
entry to nonessential traffic during the Covid-19 pandemic in March
2020 had the consequence of accelerating drug traffickers' shift to
fentanyl, a more potent drug than heroin, which helped lead to an
increase in drug overdose deaths.
Between 2016 and 2020, annual drug overdose deaths from synthetic
opioids (excluding methadone) increased by 192 percent (from 19,500 to
56,894), according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC). The CDC data also show:
The average annual growth rate of drug overdose deaths from
synthetic opioids was 31 percent while Donald Trump was
president.
Between 2019 and 2020, the last year of Trump's presidency,
the increase in drug overdose deaths from synthetic opioids was
55 percent.
Between 2020 and 2021, the first year of Joe Biden's
presidency, the increase in drug overdose deaths from synthetic
opioids was 25 percent.
Because fentanyl is so potent in small quantities, it is dangerous
for users but profitable for drug traffickers. The Trump
administration's decision to shut down all but nonessential traffic at
U.S.-Mexico ports of entry on March 20, 2020, appears to have spurred
traffickers to shift from heroin to fentanyl.
``Despite fentanyl's built-in economic advantage, it took the
massive restriction in imports and travel during the pandemic--
particularly the U.S. policy of limiting travel with Mexico--to force
U.S.-Mexico border traffickers to shift from heroin to fentanyl,''
testified David Bier of the Cato Institute during a House Homeland
Security Committee hearing (February 28, 2023). ``Within 2 months of
the pandemic, fentanyl seizures overtook heroin by weight, and by the
time the restrictions were lifted, fentanyl was accounting for over 90
percent of the seizures.'' (The weight of fentanyl seized by U.S.
Customs and Border Protection increased tenfold between December 2019
and December 2020.)
CDC data show unusually large increases in the 12-month moving
average of drug overdose deaths from synthetic opioids in April, May,
June, July, and August 2020, which continued through the remainder of
the calendar year, based on a National Foundation for American Policy
analysis. Precise month-by-month figures are unavailable from the CDC,
but even the 12-month moving averages, which likely mask much larger
increases in individual months, show a significant rise after the March
2020 closing of U.S.-Mexico ports of entry to nonessential traffic.
Some Republicans on the House Homeland Security Committee
criticized Bier for his testimony as it ran counter to the hearing's
title, ``Every State Is a Border State: Examining Secretary Mayorkas'
Border Crisis.'' Bier explained that asylum seekers are the least
likely people to carry fentanyl across the U.S.-Mexico border since
they immediately turn themselves in to Border Patrol Agents or ask for
asylum, when permitted, at ports of entry. A more orderly process for
people seeking protection would free up law enforcement resources.
(Bier was not given a chance to respond to several assertions by
Republican members and published additional responses after the
hearing.)
Democratic committee members pointed out through questioning that
the vast majority (93 percent) of fentanyl is seized at ports of entry
or checkpoints--not between ports of entry by Border Patrol agents.
Moreover, Democratic members noted those convicted for smuggling
fentanyl are primarily U.S. citizens (86 percent).
Democrats at the hearing did not point out that synthetic opioid
deaths increased significantly while Donald Trump was President. This
was surprising since even Republican Homeland Security Committee
Chairman Mark E. Green (R-TN) noted in his opening statement that the
two sons of the mother who testified at the hearing died of ``fentanyl
poisoning in 2020.''
While blaming immigrants for the fentanyl crisis may have political
appeal, research by professors Ben Feldmeyer (Univ. of Cincinnati),
Diana Sun (Florida Atlantic University), Casey T. Harris (Univ. of
Arkansas) and Francis T. Cullen (Univ. of Cincinnati) found immigrants
are associated with fewer drug overdoses and homicides in an area.
``Our findings directly contradict the pervasive fears and
political rhetoric suggesting that immigration has fueled drug problems
across U.S. communities,'' according to the authors, who analyzed data
from 2000 to 2015. ``We see no evidence linking immigration to rising
overdose death rates, and instead we find that immigration has most
often been associated with lower levels of overdoses and homicide
mortality. Thus, it appears that, if anything, immigration is more
likely to have been part of the solution than the source of the
overdose crisis of the early twenty-first century.''
Feldmeyer, Sun, Harris and Cullen found, ``County overdose rates
were reduced by 4.5 percent for every 1-percentage-point increase in
the foreign-born population . . . Taken together, these supplemental
models show sizable protective effects of immigration and suggest that
a 10-percentage-point increase in a county's foreign-born population
could contribute to as much as 40 percent to 50 percent lower overdose
death rates overall and for nearly each of the substances examined
here, net of controls.''
The evidence indicates that closing the door to immigration will
not reduce deaths from drug overdoses. The data show that stopping most
traffic at U.S.-Mexico ports of entry in 2020 while Donald Trump was
President had the unintended consequence of encouraging drug
traffickers to switch from heroin to fentanyl, which contributed to an
increase in synthetic opioid-related deaths in America.
Mr. Carter. Between 2019 and 2020, the last year of Trump's
Presidency, the increase in drug overdose deaths from synthetic
opioid was at 55 percent. Between 2020 and 2021, the first year
of Joe Biden's Presidency, the increase in drug overdose deaths
from synthetic opioid was at 25 percent. Not my words. I will
enter this into the record. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
But I will tell you this, this is nothing to be proud of,
that one President had higher than another, but it is a fact
that requires discussion. But it isn't anything to be proud of
because if it were just 1 percent, if it was just one daughter,
one son, one child that was impacted by this horrible drug that
is in our communities now, that comes across our borders now,
not necessarily by immigrants, but primarily by those that are
seeking to do harm and to enter the drug trade.
What do we do when we strip off our party veils and say,
let's fix this issue regardless of our party? Let's take away
the notion that this one man, Secretary Mayorkas, is this
boogeyman, and we send a message to the rest of the world, if
we can just get rid of him, all of our problems would go away.
It isn't fair. It is disingenuous. It is misleading to the
American people. They deserve better and we can do better.
Mr. Chairman, I yield.
Mr. Higgins. The gentlemen yields.
The gentleman from Florida, Mr. Gimenez, is recognized for
5 minutes.
Mr. Gimenez. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Pearlstein, do you believe that dereliction of duty is
an impeachable offense?
Ms. Pearlstein. The only examples in U.S. history I cited
in my testimony. The words ``dereliction of duty'' weren't
charged. They weren't the Articles of Impeachment. But those
circumstances were where judges, the officers at issue, were
either chronically drunk or mentally incapable of performing
their duties, or both.
Mr. Gimenez. Do you believe that failure to uphold your
oath to protect the homeland, is that an impeachable offense?
Ms. Pearlstein. I don't believe that anybody has ever been
impeached for a failure to uphold the oath.
Mr. Gimenez. I didn't ask the question. I said, do you
believe that somebody who fails to uphold their oath to protect
the homeland, is that an impeachable offense?
Ms. Pearlstein. I believe that somebody who acts in his own
interests or the interests of gaining his own power or in the
interests of a foreign power is impeachable.
Mr. Gimenez. So you don't think that somebody who fails to
uphold the oath to protect the homeland and does it in a way
that is a dereliction of duty, you don't believe that that is
impeachable? That somehow Congress doesn't have the right to
exercise its power of impeachment to remove that individual who
is clearly violating his oath and is derelict in his duty? You
don't think that Congress can do that?
Ms. Pearlstein. I don't know that there's evidence here of
dereliction of duty.
Mr. Gimenez. I didn't say there is evidence.
Ms. Pearlstein. With respect to the violation of the oath--
--
Mr. Gimenez. I am not asking evidence. Ma'am, ma'am,
ma'am----
Ms. Pearlstein [continuing]. If it's a violation of the
oath, then----
Mr. Gimenez. Ma'am, I reclaim my time. I reclaim my time. I
would like for you to answer my question, not your question.
OK? My question is very specific. I didn't say about this case.
I am just talking in general. All right? OK?
Ms. Pearlstein. In general, depending on the circumstances,
depending on the violations of the Constitution, it is
conceivable, yes.
Mr. Gimenez. OK. So if we determine that Mr. Mayorkas is
derelict in his duty and has failed to uphold his oath to
protect the homeland, in our opinion, OK, then is that an
impeachable offense?
Ms. Pearlstein. Again, dereliction of duty is different
from failure to comply with the oath. Right? To the extent the
oath----
Mr. Gimenez. I said both.
Ms. Pearlstein [continuing]. Has a variety of things----
Mr. Gimenez. I said both, so.
Ms. Pearlstein. Well, they're two different legal
arguments.
Mr. Gimenez. I have said both. OK?
Ms. Pearlstein. So, I've addressed the question, but----
Mr. Gimenez. Can't you be guilty of having doing two things
at the same time?
Ms. Pearlstein. I've addressed the impeachability of
dereliction of duty.
Mr. Gimenez. OK, very good.
Ms. Pearlstein. The question of the oath is something
separate. To the extent it raises an allegation of a violation
of the Constitution, it is potentially impeachable. But here
the Supreme Court has rejected that argument.
Mr. Gimenez. I don't believe they have. But anyway, I will
move on.
Is a violation of law, when an individual clearly violates
the law, is that an impeachable offense? Depending on the law,
I guess, right? I mean, how serious that law is. Is that your
interpretation?
Ms. Pearlstein. Impeachment, right, is only about a certain
category of offenses. It only addresses a certain category of
offenses. It has to be an offense similar to treason or
bribery. That is an offense against the system of government,
not any ordinary criminal offense, something that disrupts the
structure of the Constitution or system of government.
Mr. Gimenez. Very good. OK, thank you.
So allowing millions and millions of people to come into
the United States, violating the clear intent of Congress, when
it says that in order to be paroled in the United States it has
to be done on a case-by-case basis, and then you do it on a
mass basis, that actually may have something, you know, to
affect--may affect the land, it may affect the structure of
government. I would argue that. So I guess it is up to the
Supreme Court to determine that eventually.
Now, Ms. Dunn, let me say that, you know, I feel deeply for
you and your loss. Actually, in my extended family, we had the
same kind of loss due to fentanyl. Do you believe that the
multinational criminal organizations, the cartels that are
working across the border, do you believe that they are
terrorist organizations, for lack of a better word?
Mrs. Dunn. Yes, sir, I do.
Mr. Gimenez. And they are guilty of mass murder?
Mrs. Dunn. Yes, sir, I do believe that.
Mr. Gimenez. I do, too. I believe also one of the things
that Mr. Mayorkas has shown to be derelict in his duty is the
absolute failure of this administration to combat what I
consider to be terrorist organizations, which are the Mexican
drug cartels that control the border.
By the way, I also believe the Biden administration is
actually helping those organizations. By not stemming the flow
of illegal immigration they are enriching those multinational
organizations to the tune of billions of dollars, which allows
them to produce more fentanyl, which allows them to kill tens
of thousands of American citizens. So for that, too, I believe
that Mr. Mayorkas has failed miserably in his duty to protect
the homeland.
With that, my time has expired and I yield back. Thank you.
Mr. Higgins. The gentlemen yields.
Mr. Thanedar is recognized for 5 minutes for questions.
Mr. Thanedar. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to thank all of
our witnesses here today.
My sincere condolences to our witnesses. As a father and a
grandfather, I sympathize with your unimaginable loss. As a
Member of Congress, I realize it is my duty and my colleagues'
duty to do all we can to prevent tragedies like this from
impacting our communities. That is why one of my first act as a
freshman Member of Congress was introducing an amendment to the
Republicans H.R. 2 border bill, which they are now threatening
to shut the Government down over, which aimed to bolster the
Department of Homeland Security's efforts to combat cross-
border threats posed by transnational criminal organizations.
This amendment, which would have strengthened DHS's ability
to combat organizations engaging in criminal activity such as
drug trafficking and human smuggling, was voted down by every
single Republican Member citing in this hearing room today--
sitting in this hearing room today and on this committee.
While Republicans voted this and every other Democratic
amendment down, I know enacting meaningful legislation is
needed to address the issues at the Southern Border. That is
why I have introduced the United Against Transnational Criminal
Organizations Act. Several of my Democratic colleagues on this
committee have signed on to this bill, which directs DHS to
take a range of actions to combat illicit criminal cartel
activity that undermines our homeland security.
The bill directs DHS to establish a joint task force,
bringing together multiple agency components to conduct
operations to combat cross-border threats posed by TCOs and
organizations engaged in the trafficking of fentanyl and its
materials across the land border of United States.
This bill directs DHS to establish an integrated border
intelligence analytical cell to improve information sharing
regarding the concentrated surge of migration, smuggling, and
trafficking. Since we know a vast amount of fentanyl is
trafficked through our ports of entry, it requires DHS to issue
a strategy to improve the effectiveness of the screening of
vehicles, persons, and cargo at land ports of entry that are at
high risk of being related to transnational criminal
organizations.
My question to you, Professor Pearlstein, would you agree
that a legislation such as my United Against Transnational
Criminal Organizations Act is a more effective measure to
solving the issues at our border versus impeaching a Secretary
over policy differences?
Ms. Pearlstein. Thank you, Mr. Thanedar. Again, I'm not an
immigration policy expert, but the bill that you propose is
certainly within Congress' power to enact. It may have an
effect on immigration policy. Impeachment will have no effect
on immigration policy.
Mr. Thanedar. Thank you. Mr. Chair, I yield back.
Mr. Higgins. The gentlemen yields.
The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Pfluger, is recognized for 5
minutes for questions.
Mr. Pfluger. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Ms. Nobles and Ms. Dunn, I am so sorry for your loss. We
can't even fathom the loss that you have gone through and your
courage to be here to speak out, to bring light to the
situation, to speak the truth, is not only commended, but it is
necessary so that we avoid this pain for other families. Thank
you for being here.
Professor Pearlstein, are you familiar with the William
Belknap case that you mentioned in your testimony? Like you are
intimately familiar with it as a Constitutional law expert?
Ms. Pearlstein. I'm generally familiar with the Belknap
impeachment, yes.
Mr. Pfluger. You wrote about it in your testimony, correct?
Ms. Pearlstein. I did, yes.
Mr. Pfluger. Is there a reason that you left out the fact
that Article III of that impeachment case mentioned the
disregarding of his duty as Secretary of War?
Ms. Pearlstein. No.
Mr. Pfluger. Was it particularly helpful to your argument
today?
Ms. Pearlstein. I'm not sure what the question is.
Mr. Pfluger. Was there a reason you left that out?
Ms. Pearlstein. I wasn't giving a full book report on the
Belknap impeachment.
Mr. Pfluger. Yeah.
Ms. Pearlstein. I was mentioning it in my testimony----
Mr. Pfluger. That is fine.
Ms. Pearlstein [continuing]. As the only other instance in
U.S. history in which Congress has ever bothered with the time
to----
Mr. Pfluger. Right, in Article III of that--thank you. That
is the only other history.
Ms. Pearlstein [continuing]. Impeach a Cabinet officer.
Mr. Pfluger. What we are talking about is unprecedented
disregarding of his duty. I am going to quote you, ``There the
professors were reasonably uniform in recognizing that it
doesn't have to be a crime, that is to say, an impeachable
offense doesn't have to be a crime, as currently embodied in
the Federal Criminal Code as enacted by Congress. What they
were thinking about with the impeachment remedy were serious
offenses against the public trust. That is, certain things that
only the President and other senior officials could do that
abuse their authority.''
Did you, in fact, say this with regards to the Trump
impeachment?
Ms. Pearlstein. I have said many things about impeachment.
I don't--it's entirely possible that I said that, and I would
still agree with it actually.
Mr. Pfluger. Mr. Chairman, I would like to insert for the
record Professor Pearlstein's comments on a radio show in New
York, on a podcast in 2019, regarding the Trump administration.
Chairman Green. Without objection, so ordered.**
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** The information has been previously inserted on page 37.
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Mr. Pfluger. Thank you. So do you believe--will you define
impeachment with regards to the public trust, as you said it
there, with regards to Trump? If the public trust is broken, is
that an impeachable offense?
Ms. Pearlstein. Public trust in this context refers to two
kinds of breaches of the public trust, generally. One is an
official who is acting in his own personal interest, right, to
aggrandize his own political wealth, interests, power, et
cetera, as opposed to the interests of the American people.
That's an example of a breach of the public trust.
The other is if an official is acting on behalf of a
foreign power, which is another example of a breach of a public
trust. Yes. I thought those issues were both implicated in the
Trump Ukraine impeachment.
Mr. Pfluger. Do you believe that public trust has been
broken with regards to the common defense of our country?
Ms. Pearlstein. As a general matter----
Mr. Pfluger [continuing]. The collective defense of our
country?
Ms. Pearlstein. As a general matter, I'm not sure I can
answer that question. That, broadly stated, has the public. I'm
not aware of any evidence. For example, that Secretary Mayorkas
has been acting for his own personal wealth or aggrandizement.
Mr. Pfluger. OK. That's fine. But in general, is breaking
the public trust in an egregious manner grounds for an
impeachment proceeding?
Ms. Pearlstein. In the way I just defined breaking the
public trust, that is, acting on behalf of one's own interests
as opposed to the interests of the public, yes, that can be an
impeachable ground if there is evidence of that.
Mr. Pfluger. Are you licensed in a State?
Ms. Pearlstein. Am I a member of the bar, do you mean?
Mr. Pfluger. Of the bar, yeah.
Ms. Pearlstein. Yes, I'm a member of the bar of the State
of California, and I'm a member of the bar of Washington, DC.
Mr. Pfluger. Is it your responsibility to uphold the laws
in those States in which you are a member of the bar?
Ms. Pearlstein. I have all of the same ethical obligations
that any attorney has.
Mr. Pfluger. When you take the oath of office as a Cabinet
member to well and faithfully execute the duties of the office,
does that infer a responsibility to uphold the laws as well?
Ms. Pearlstein. Anybody who takes an oath to take care that
the laws are faithfully executed has an oath to take care that
the laws are faithfully executed, yes.
Mr. Pfluger. Did you condemn the attacks by Hamas on
Israel?
Ms. Pearlstein. I'm not sure what that has to do with
anything.
Mr. Pfluger. It is a question. Did you condemn the attacks?
Ms. Pearlstein. My personal view of those attacks is that
they were abhorrent. I don't think I have had occasion to speak
about it publicly. It is not my area of expertise.
Mr. Pfluger. Mr. Chair, I yield back. Thank you.
Chairman Green. The gentlemen yields.
I now recognize Mr. Magaziner, the gentleman from Rhode
Island, for his 5 minutes of questioning.
Mr. Magaziner. Thank you, Chairman. I want to thank our
witnesses for having the courage to share their stories and
their expertise today.
We have real challenges at the border. I have been there, I
have seen it, and I know that the American people are counting
on Congress to act. Unfortunately, too many of my Republican
colleagues are more focused on playing politics instead of
working together to address our problems.
The Biden administration has requested $14 billion to
secure the border, funding that would hire more than 1,300
Border Patrol agents and more than 1,000 CBP officers. House
Republicans have refused to call a vote on this funding for
nearly 4 months. They have sat on this proposal for nearly 4
months, undercutting their claim that they really care about
border security. If you care about it, call a vote. If you
don't like all of the proposal, call a vote on the parts that
you do like.
When House Republicans were asked why they won't call a
vote on the President's border funding request, one of them
said, ``Let me tell you, I'm not willing to do too damn much
right now to help a Democrat and to help Joe Biden's approval
rating.'' That tells you all you need to know. He was more
concerned about Joe Biden's approval rating than about fixing
the problems at the border.
He's not the only one. Laura Ingram on FOX News said that
Republicans should not accept any border deal because it would
be ``a victory for Biden.'' Even Speaker Johnson has openly
mused that House Republicans will not accept more border
funding until there is a Republican President.
Now, some of my colleagues say, well, funding is not
enough. We need policy changes at the border, too. OK. Over the
last month, through the holidays, Secretary Mayorkas has been
working diligently with Senate Republicans and Senate Democrats
to try to come up with a policy plan for the border. Where have
House Republicans been in those talks? MIA, not participating.
They gave themselves a vacation for a month.
Well, imagine if the reverse were the truth. Imagine if
House Republicans were actually working with the Senate on a
border plan and Secretary Mayorkas decided to go on vacation
for a month. What would people say about that? Instead, you
know, this phrase, ``dereliction of duty'' gets thrown around a
lot. It is my House Republican colleagues who have been
derelict in their duty. They have refused to call a vote on
border funding for 4 months. They have refused to participate
in the talks with the Secretary and the Senate to put a border
plan together.
What have they been doing instead? Playing politics. They
passed a budget plan, the so-called Limit, Save, Grow Act,
which would have cut the Department of Homeland Security by 22
percent, eliminating 2,000 CBP officers at the border. Every
one of them voted for that.
When the Biden administration requested $84 million to help
States and cities with the costs associated with migration,
House Republicans instead cut it to zero. Some House
Republicans have openly called for shutting down the Government
this week, even though they know that that means that Border
Patrol agents who are already overworked and underpaid would be
forced to work without any pay at all. Now they are playing
politics with impeachment, even though there is no legal basis
for impeaching the Secretary.
I have heard that this is going to be our final impeachment
hearing. Still, House Republicans have yet to clearly
articulate what laws they think the Secretary has broken. They
have not brought in a single legal expert who is willing to put
up their hand and, under oath, state that there is a sound
legal basis for impeachment. The best they could do last week
was a handful of Republican politicians.
They invited the Secretary to appear in a hearing to defend
himself against their ambiguous charges. Then when he sent a
letter back on January 11 saying that he would appear, they
reneged on his invitation and disinvited him.
But the sad thing about these political games is that this
is wasted time. This is time that we could be spending to work
together on real solutions for the border, real solutions to
solve the fentanyl crisis, real solutions to combat the cartels
and create a safe and orderly system at the border. Senate
Democrats are working on it as we speak. Senate Republicans are
working on it as we speak. The Secretary is working on it as we
speak. It is only House Republicans who are putting politics
ahead of doing the work to solve our problems.
Professor, for those of us who are serious about trying to
improve the situation at the border, is impeachment Congress'
most effective tool to do it or are there other powers that
Congress has that would be better suited to fixing the
situation at the border?
Ms. Pearlstein. Thank you, Congressman. As I've said,
impeachment in this context will have no effect on
administration or American border policy. Congress has a host
of tools at its disposal, as the Supreme Court recently listed
and as I've testified to, including, of course, appropriations,
oversight hearings, legislative process, Senate confirmations,
withholding funds, and then, of course, as I've mentioned
before, elections, and there are others as well.
Mr. Magaziner. Thank you, Professor.
I yield back.
Chairman Green. The gentlemen yields.
We a going to take a 10-minute break to give our witnesses
an opportunity to take a break, and we will reconvene at we
will say 11:40.
The committee is adjourned--or is in recess.
[Recess.]
Chairman Green. The committee will come to order.
I now recognize the gentlelady from Georgia, Mrs. Greene,
for her 5 minutes of testimony.
Ms. Greene. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
So far today on this very important historic hearing, we
have listened to Democrats complain that Republicans have done
nothing to stop the border security crisis, pretending that we
didn't pass H.R. 2, the strongest border bill that has ever
been passed in Congress. All of our Democrat colleagues voted
no to that bill.
My Democrat colleagues today are complaining that they need
more money. Well, it seems to be from listening on this
committee, most of the time they want more money to help more
migrants come into the country. It is unfortunate that it is
about migrants. It should be about Americans.
I have also listened to them talk about impeachment,
talking about impeachment, saying that impeachment is not the
right thing to do when it comes to Secretary Mayorkas,
complaining about impeachment hearings. But I would like to
remind everyone that when they impeached President Trump, they
introduced Articles of Impeachment on January 11, held zero
hearings, and then passed these Articles of Impeachment on
January 13. Oh, my, oh, my. The hypocrisy.
But let's talk a little bit further. Let's talk about
something I heard from one of our witnesses today, saying that
impeachment is needed or necessary or warranted when this
person has acted in the interest of a foreign power, that that
is an impeachable offense. Well, let's talk about how we could
argue Secretary Mayorkas has definitely acted for a foreign
power.
A former special agent for DEA's Special Operations
Division testified under oath that the cartels have control
over the United States' Southern Border. The cartels, not our
government, not our Border Patrol. That is a foreign power.
Cartels and coyotes are making around $13 billion a year in
human trafficking alone off Joe Biden's open border policies
and Secretary Mayorkas' willful, willful disobedience in his
job. The revenue is 26 times more than cartels earned under
President Trump. Twenty-six times more. That would definitely
be helping a foreign power.
I am sure that money is spent in countries like Mexico.
That helps their economy.
Cartels control approximately 40 percent of Mexico. The
cartels do. That means that this border crisis and the laws
that are being broken are definitely in the interest of a
foreign power.
Now, we are also hearing a debate back and forth about
policy. Is it a policy difference or is it Secretary Mayorkas'
disobedience and his willfulness to break our Federal laws?
I ask that question because I want to know, is it the Biden
administration's policy to kill 300 Americans every single day
to fentanyl? Is it the Biden administration's policy that
cartel members are allowed to come in our country and are
released? These are unaccompanied minors. Are they allowed by
the Biden administration's policy to come in the country and
rape and murder young women? Is it the Biden administration's
policy for nearly 100,000 unaccompanied minor children to go
missing in our country? Is it the Biden administration's policy
for child labor, migrant child labor that was talked about in
the New York Times, is that the Biden administration's policy?
If so, then maybe we shouldn't be having hearings on my
Articles of Impeachment to impeach Secretary Mayorkas. Maybe we
should be holding Articles of Impeachment on the President of
the United States. Is that where we are going?
What do you think about that, Ms. Pearlstein? Do you think
is it a policy difference or is it Secretary Mayorkas? Which
one, Biden, Joe Biden or Secretary Mayorkas?
Ms. Pearlstein. My impression of the allegations that the
Majority has raised here is that they are entirely about policy
differences with the----
Ms. Greene. Ms. Pearlstein, you have talked about policy in
your testimony today. Policy, so that would be Joe Biden. I am
sure you voted for him for President. You have been talking
about the Biden administration's policy has been the cause of
all of this. So is it Joe Biden's policy, the administration's
policy, or is it Secretary Mayorkas?
Ms. Pearlstein. The Constitution, no matter which official,
says that impeachment----
Ms. Greene. Ms. Pearlstein, I asked you a question. Is it
the Biden administration or is it Secretary Mayorkas? Not the
Constitution. We are not talking about the Constitution. Is it
the Biden administration's open border policies or is it
Secretary Mayorkas breaking Federal law? One or the other,
because the statistics are clear. Are you capable of answering
that question?
Ms. Pearlstein. I am not sure. Those were about four
questions.
Ms. Greene. No, it is one or the other, Biden
administration open border policies or Secretary Mayorkas?
Ms. Pearlstein. One or the other what? Who caused it?
Ms. Greene. That has caused 300 Americans to die every
single day. These two women sitting next to you's daughters
have been murdered. We are talking about over 100,000--I am
sorry, nearly 100,000 unaccompanied minors missing in this
country. We are talking about cartel members everywhere, the
cartel controlling the Southern Border. We are talking about
the massive increase in statistics.
It is either one or the other. It is either the Biden
administration's open-border policies or it is Secretary
Mayorkas.
Ms. Pearlstein. Ma'am----
Ms. Greene. OK. We will take it----
Ms. Pearlstein [continuing]. I'm a professor of
Constitutional law.
Ms. Greene. No, you can't point to the Constitution.
Chairman Green. All right. So we are a little over here.
The gentlelady yields.
Ms. Greene. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Green. I now recognize Mr. Ivey for his 5 minutes
of questioning.
Mr. Ivey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would like to start off, we are going to show a clip from
an interview that involved former Secretary Chertoff, and I
wanted to play that now, if we can.
[Video shown.]
Mr. Ivey. Thank you. Then shortly after that, former
Secretary Johnson said, we can't have a Secretary who is
distracted by a stunt in Congress and an attempted impeachment.
Similarly, we have had other quotes, I think, from
Congressman Ken Buck, a Republican Congressman, who has raised
similar concerns about--well, who stated, basically, there are
no grounds for impeachment. Also, Professor Jonathan Turley,
who testified. Now, Turley is important here because he is the
witness that the Republicans called to testify at the oversight
hearing that maybe Ms. Greene, I think, was referencing with
respect to President Biden. He said that, you know, at that
hearing that there was no evidence to impeach President Biden.
He sent us a letter to this committee saying the same thing
with respect to Secretary Mayorkas. Thanks.
So I want to sort-of point out a couple of things here with
respect to that. To the extent we have had hearings that have
discussed this issue of impeachment, from a legal standard,
from a Constitutional standpoint, the only witnesses who have
actually addressed it directly are Professor Bowman, who
testified at the last hearing, and Professor Pearlstein, who is
testifying today. There is no testimony to the contrary that
they have provided that was given by the witnesses that the
Republicans have called. I suggest that that is in part, or
maybe in whole, because they don't have experts who will come
in and say--legal experts, Constitutional scholars who are
experienced with respect to impeachment, who will come in here
and raise their right hand and swear under oath that the
Constitution justifies impeachment with respect to Secretary
Mayorkas in this case.
The absence of the testimony, the Ranking Member raised due
process issues at the beginning of the hearing, I would suggest
that this goes to the heart of it. If there is no evidence that
the Republicans have presented about actual impeachment, the
standard in the Constitution being violated, we should not be
moving forward with impeachment under these circumstances.
I also note Professor Pearlstein's testimony, the point
about even if you don't like the policies that Secretary
Mayorkas is implementing and you impeach him and the Senate
removes him, which they are not going to, we have already heard
from Senators over there who have said you are wasting the
time, let's focus on actual legislation that they are trying to
work out and get done, but even if you remove him, President
Biden's just going to move up the acting administrator, I
suppose, Acting Secretary who would continue to implement the
same policy.
So it is a waste of time, as Secretary Chertoff called it.
It is a political stunt. But more importantly, I mean, it is a
total distraction from actually trying to get the legislation
done.
It is hard to ignore the fact that the Senate is having
bipartisan negotiations on the behalf of the Democrats and the
Republicans to try and pass a bill or put together a bill that
would address these issues. The White House is working with
them. House Democrats are working with them. Only the House
Republicans are no-shows. They did the field trip to the border
and did the photo op and sent it back, but they haven't decided
to move forward with actually fixing the issues on that front.
Just the last point I will make on that front, H.R. 2,
there is a lot of talk about that is been passed and it is
sitting on, you know, Schumer's desk. But it is not on his
desk, it is in the trash can. You know what? It is in
McConnell's trash can, too.
They said that before it was passed through, they said, you
got all these poison pill provisions in here. We are not going
to move this. Send us something we can actually work with. You
didn't. So now they are trying to put a bill together and
everybody is on board with that effort, except House
Republicans.
So if we really want to get something done, let's all come
together and work on it so we can pass legislation that
addresses the problem.
With that, I yield back.
Chairman Green. The gentlemen yields.
I now recognize Mr. Ezell, the gentleman from Mississippi,
for his 5 minutes of questioning.
Mr. Ezell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you all of our
witnesses today for being here and providing this important
information that we need.
Ms. Nobles, thank you for joining us here today. I can't
imagine how tough it is. Must be discussing this over and over
again about the Mayorkas failed border security policy. I
genuinely appreciate you sharing the challenging stories and
emphasizing the importance of border security.
Americans are demanding we do something. With over 40 years
in law enforcement, including the sheriff, I truly understand
how challenging it is to ensure the safety of our communities.
I never stopped, slowed down, or prevented my officers from
enforcing the law. I swore an oath to protect the citizens of
my community. Somehow, Secretary Mayorkas is making this tough
job even tougher for our men and women of Border Patrol.
Ms. Nobles, a report from the House Judiciary Committee
pointed out several failures in vetting your daughter's killer
when he crossed the border. The report showed your daughter's
murderer was arrested for associations with MS-13 long before
he came to the United States, something that could have been
verified with a simple phone call. But our members of Border
Patrol are not being allowed to do their jobs. They told me
this personally when we were down there last year. Instead,
there are nurse-maiding and making sandwiches for criminals
while all this stuff goes on.
You know, the buck stops at the top. This could have
immediately disqualified this killer from getting in the
country had they been able to do their jobs that they have been
hired to do.
The report also noted that he was released after he was
arrested for murder.
Ms. Noble, do you have any reason to believe that Secretary
Mayorkas has taken these reports seriously?
Ms. Nobles. No, he hasn't.
Mr. Ezell. To me, the reports are clear, his policies are
failing. Do you believe he is trying to change the process of
the vetting illegal aliens coming across our border?
Ms. Nobles. No. If he was, then my daughter would still be
here today, if they did their jobs. They did not do their jobs.
Mr. Ezell. It is no secret how gruesome and violent the
cartels are. I have seen it personally myself. In many cases,
they are even better armed than local law enforcement.
In your opening statement, you quote, ``This isn't about
immigration. This is about protecting everyone in the United
States of America.'' Again, the American citizens are demanding
that we take action.
Ms. Nobles, do you believe that Secretary Mayorkas'
policies are strengthening the cartels? Do you believe that his
policies are strengthening the cartels?
Ms. Nobles. Yes.
Mr. Ezell. No mother or father should ever have to endure
hearing chilling news that their child has been a victim of
such a violent, heinous crime. Unfortunately, as a sheriff, I
have delivered this devastating news to families. It is one of
the most difficult things you will ever do as a law enforcement
officer.
To end, I will simply ask, do you believe this crisis has
been created by the Biden administration's policies?
Ms. Nobles. Yes.
Mr. Ezell. Thank you again, and thank you all for being
here today. We will continue to be your voice. We will continue
to take action. No matter what the other side says, we are
going to do something to stop this.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Chairman Green. The gentleman yields.
I now recognize Ms. Ramirez, the gentlelady from Illinois,
for her 5 minutes of questioning.
Mrs. Ramirez. Thank you, Chairman and Ranking Member.
I want to begin by acknowledging the losses here today. Ms.
Nobles, Ms. Dunn, I am grieved that you have endured losing
your daughters, Kayla Marie and Ashley. No parent should ever
have to go through this loss. No parent.
I also want to acknowledge the losses that are not
described today. I want to name a couple of those: Virterma de
la Sancha Cerros, 33-year-old mother; Yorlei Rubi, 10 years
old; and Jonathan Agustin Briones de la Sancha, 8 years old.
They lost their lives when cruel policy choices and willful
obstruction of intergovernmental coordination by the Abbott
administration in Texas kept Border Patrol agents from
responding to rescue a drowning mother and her children.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask unanimous consent to
enter these two articles into the record: ``Three migrants,
including two children, drowned near the Texas border,'' and
``An 8-year-old migrant died after a week in U.S. detention.''
Chairman Green. Without objection, so ordered.
[The information follows:]
Articles Submitted by Hon. Delia C. Ramirez
3 migrants, including 2 children, drown near texas border
According to Customs and Border Protection, Federal agents were
``physically barred'' by State officials from responding to the
situation. Texas officials said that was ``wholly inaccurate.''
By Colbi Edmonds, Jan. 14, 2024, New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/14/us/migrants-drown-texas-
dispute.html
Three migrants drowned in the Rio Grande by Eagle Pass, Texas,
officials said Saturday, setting off a dispute among State and Federal
officials in what seemed to escalate the feud between the Biden
administration and Gov. Greg Abbott over the stringent security
measures the State has imposed to keep migrants from entering the
country.
According to the Department of Homeland Security, Border Patrol
agents received a distress call from Mexican authorities about a woman
and two children who were trying to cross into the United States near
the entrance of Shelby Park, which Mr. Abbott recently closed to curb
migration.
Homeland Security said that when Border Patrol agents tried to
respond to the call, they were ``physically barred'' by Texas Military
Department agents from accessing the area. But the military department
said when Border Patrol agents requested access, the migrants had
already drowned, adding that claims that it had prevented the agents
from saving them were ``wholly inaccurate.''
For more than 2 years, Mr. Abbott has been testing the legal limits
of what a State can do to enforce immigration law, expanding the use of
concertina wire along the riverbank and installing buoy barriers to
discourage migrants from crossing. But Border Patrol officials in the
area have complained that those moves have made it harder for agents to
help migrants in distress. And a Homeland Security spokesperson said
Texas officials must stop interfering with Federal law enforcement.
``The Texas Governor's policies are cruel, dangerous and inhumane
and Texas' blatant disregard for Federal authority over immigration
poses grave risks,'' the spokesperson said in a statement.
The military department said its agents searched the Rio Grande
with lights and night-vision goggles but did not see any migrants
trying to cross. The department said that its agents confirmed that
when the Federal agents tried to get into Shelby Park, they said that
Mexican authorities had already recovered the bodies of two of the
migrants.
The Mexican government confirmed that its National Guard recovered
three migrants' bodies and rescued two other Mexican people.
The Texas Military Department denied that it was made aware of any
dire situation or people in need of assistance near Shelby Park. ``At
no time did T.M.D. security personnel along the river observe any
distressed migrants, nor did T.M.D. turn back any illegal immigrants
from the U.S. during this period,'' it said in a statement.
The Times could not independently confirm the events that occurred
around the drownings.
In response to the deaths, U.S. Representative Henry Cuellar, a
Democrat representing a portion of South Texas that includes San
Antonio, said over the phone on Sunday, ``The State should not be
preventing Border Patrol from doing its job in that area.''
Eagle Pass is a small border town that saw up to 5,000 migrant
crossings a day during the height of the influx. More recently, that
number has gone down to around 400 to 500, Mayor Rolando Salinas Jr.
said in a news conference last week.
Many migrants crossing the border are in urgent need of medical
attention when they arrive in Eagle Pass, which is struggling to meet
the needs of its 28,000 residents, much less of those who make it
across the border as well. The city has had to assign one of its five
ambulances full time to transport injured migrants from the Rio
Grande's edge.
An estimated 300,000 migrants were apprehended along the southern
border in December, a record, prompting the temporary closure of four
international crossings, including the one in Eagle Pass. The Justice
Department denounced the Governor's decision to close the entrances.
Texas has long been at the center of American immigration policy,
with some of the largest levels of arrivals in recent years occurring
in El Paso and across the Rio Grande Valley. But the area has turned
into a key point of friction this year between Republican leaders and
the Biden administration.
Edgar Sandoval, J. David Goodman and Lola Fadulu contributed reporting.
Colbi Edmonds writes about the environment, education, and
infrastructure.
______
8-year-old migrant died after a week in u.s. detention
The death this week is at the center of concerns about the government's
policy of detaining children for any period of time, often in crowded
settings.
By Eileen Sullivan and Emiliano Rodriguez Mega, May 19, 2023, Reporting
from Washington and Mexico City, New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/19/us/politics/8-year-old-
migrant-died-border.html
An 8-year-old girl who died while in U.S. border custody on
Wednesday had been detained for a week--more than twice the amount of
time the government generally aims to hold migrants, particularly
children, according to two people familiar with the situation.
The girl and her family were being held in a Customs and Border
Protection facility in Harlingen, Texas, where they were waiting to be
deported on a flight to Honduras. The family was among thousands of
migrants who crossed the country's southern border ahead of the
expiration of a pandemic-era immigration rule that the authorities had
feared would lead to a large influx of migrants and overcrowding at
border holding facilities.
The people familiar with the situation spoke on the condition of
anonymity because the child's death is under internal investigation.
Honduras's foreign ministry identified the girl as Anadith Danay
Reyes Alvarez, a Panamanian national known to her family as Ana, who
was born with a heart condition. Her parents, who are Honduran,
traveled to the United States so that their daughter could have ``a
better life,'' said Antonio Garcia, the country's foreign vice
minister.
Customs and Border Protection officials said on Wednesday that
emergency medical services had transported the girl to a hospital,
where she died. Biden administration officials did not respond to
additional questions about the circumstances surrounding the child's
death, citing the internal review. A border official in Texas who was
not authorized to speak publicly said that Ana had a serious medical
condition of which officials had not immediately been aware.
Though all migrants are given health screenings when taken into
Federal custody, the death of a child is at the heart of concerns about
the government's policy of detaining children for any period of time
and particularly in crowded settings. While there is no law or official
guidance about how long undocumented migrants are to be detained while
in border custody, the government typically aims for about 3 days.
In the past week the authorities have struggled with overcrowding
at border facilities, which quickly exceeded capacity after a spike in
illegal migration ahead of last week's lifting of the pandemic-era
public health rule, known as Title 42.
That policy had allowed officials to expel some migrants swiftly,
instead of holding them in custody. Since its expiration, officials
have reverted to policies that involve longer processing times for
migrants.
On May 17, the day Ana died, migrants were being held for an
average of four-and-a-half days, according to internal data obtained by
The New York Times, compared to an average of a little under 3 days on
May 10.
``The bottom line is you need to get families out of C.B.P. custody
because the conditions generally are substandard and not appropriate
for kids to be held in,'' said Wendy Young, the president of the
advocacy group Kids in Need of Defense.
Scientific studies have concluded that detaining children, even if
they are with their parents, can cause developmental and mental health
issues.
Brandon Judd, the leader of the Border Patrol labor union, said
agents have raised concerns about the crowded detention centers.
``There's a reason that you have a certain capacity, and that's for
the safety of everybody,'' Mr. Judd said. ``When you exceed that
capacity, then safety levels are going to go way down.''
In 2018 and 2019, when the numbers of migrant crossings reached
high levels, the Trump administration came under intense criticism for
the death of minors in Customs and Border Protection detention.
In an interview with Univision on May 18, Lorna Santos, Ana's aunt,
said that the child's mother told officials at the Customs and Border
Protection facility that Ana was having trouble breathing, but that a
medical staff member dismissed her concerns. Ms. Santos said the girl's
mother told her that Ana later fainted and was taken to a hospital,
where she died in the waiting room.
Wilson Paz, the director of Honduras's migrant protection service,
said Ana's father told Honduran authorities that she had undergone
surgery in Panama 3 years ago to address a membrane blocking blood from
reaching her heart. Mr. Paz said she was tested for Covid-19 when she
went to the United States, and she was diagnosed with the flu.
The Biden administration has been managing a historic spike in
illegal migration for the past two years, as people flee authoritarian
states, violence and extreme poverty.
Though the administration added more staff to help process migrants
into the country and increased Customs and Border Protection's capacity
to hold migrants before Title 42 expired, it was not enough to stave
off the backups that led to overcrowding last week.
In the week since the policy ended, however, the number of illegal
crossings have been down significantly, with an average of 3,000 to
4,000 apprehensions a day, the Homeland Security Department said,
compared to the nearly 10,000 apprehended a day around the time that
Ana and her family crossed. The majority of the migrants have been from
Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala. Since May 12, more than 11,000 migrants
have been expelled to Mexico or repatriated, the department said in a
statement on Friday.
On May 10, Angel Eduardo Maradiaga Espinoza, a 17-year-old Honduran
boy, died while he was in a Florida shelter overseen by the Department
of Health and Human Services, the agency charged with overseeing the
care of migrant children who cross into the United States without a
parent or guardian. The boy's mother said he was epileptic but had not
been sick when he traveled to the United States.
Zolan Kanno-Youngs contributed reporting from Washington.
Eileen Sullivan is a Washington correspondent covering the Department
of Homeland Security. Previously, she worked at the Associated Press
where she won a Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting.
Mrs. Ramirez. Thank you. Anadith Reyes Alvarez, an 8-year-
old who passed away on May 2023 at a CBP detention facility in
Texas when medical staff failed to review her medical
documentation and provide access to a physician and emergency
care. There are so many examples of the consequences of a cold
disregard for our shared humanity and the absence of
compassion, there is just so much pain. It is across our
communities, immigration statuses, political identities when it
comes to the humanitarian crisis within our borders and the
cost of Congressional inaction.
You see, I just got back from Guatemala, where I heard
painful stories that underline the need to act beyond our
borders to address the root causes of migration. What causes a
9-, a 12-year-old to cross all of Guatemala, all of Mexico, in
hope to get to our Southern Border? What do we do to create
legal pathways and how do we understand the root causes of
migration?
I heard about children who are hungry, impoverished,
desperate to meet the needs of their families, willing to leave
villages, cross jungles, deserts, and rivers, and die in Rio
Grande just to make it to the United States. I heard about the
pain and trauma of separation, isolation, detention, and
deportation. I saw how corruption, corporate land grabs,
environmental destruction and disaster, Democratic backsliding,
create conditions that drive migration. Pain that shows us
where healing is needed.
The pain that was shared with me in Guatemala requires
healing that could be advanced by Congressional action,
Congressional action that addresses and prepares for climate
migration, invests in economic development of Latin American
countries, modernizes legal pathways to citizenship,
strengthens democracy, and combats corruption in Latin America.
You see, the pain of Anadith's death requires healing that
could be advanced by Congressional action, like establishing
humanitarian standards at CBP sites, granting immigration
parole, improving adjudicatory processing capacity, or
increasing personnel to reduce USCIS backlogs. The pain of
Virterma, Yorlei, and Jonathan's death requires healing that
could be advanced by Congressional action. We could increase
border personnel to expand screening and assistance to new
arrivals.
The pain of families trafficked by Abbott must be addressed
by implementing Federal coordination or resettlement to
interior cities, expanding work permits. To heal we have to
actually talk about comprehensive immigration reform and have a
conversation, why are thousands of people wanting to cross our
Southern Border?
Professor Pearlstein, the testimonies we heard today show
how critical it is that we take policy action. Yes or no.
Ms. Pearlstein. I think these policies are of enormous,
pressing public importance. Yes.
Mrs. Ramirez. Just for the record, for the 10th time maybe,
if impeachments are not an instrument for effecting policy
changes, is there a legitimate basis for this impeachment, yes
or no?
Ms. Pearlstein. I don't believe the Constitution supports
impeachment in this case.
Mrs. Ramirez. Thank you.
You see, Republicans are not interested in advancing policy
change. If they were, they would stop these impeachment
hearings and work with us to pass legislation. Even one of the
many things I talked about, sit down with us and actually work
on it.
But according to Speaker Johnson, Congress can't solve
border until Trump is elected or a Republican is back in the
White House. I mean, think about how politicized this moment
is. They are parading our parade for their political purposes.
Enough.
As I said, if we are serious about this process and this
solution, we would be capable to respect people's humanity and
move us to a collaborative approach where our neighboring
countries were able to address the root cause, keep communities
safe, and honor the very fabric of our multiracial
multicultural democracy. That is what we would be doing today.
Thank you, Chairman and Ranking Member. I yield back.
Chairman Green. The gentlelady yields.
I now recognize Mr. D'Esposito, the gentleman from New
York, for his 5 minutes of questioning.
Mr. D'Esposito. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to the
witnesses this morning.
It seems that the other side of the aisle is talking about
making this impeachment about politics. I will tell you that
this has absolutely nothing to do with politics and everything
to do with the American people.
Ms. Pearlstein, you mentioned in the recording that our
Chairman played that the Founding Fathers talked, and what they
described in the Constitution is not what we focus on right now
always. You, quote, said, ``Serious offenses against the public
trust could lead to an impeachment.''
So, Mrs. Dunn, do you believe that what has occurred and
what happened to your daughter and other teenagers and
Americans throughout this country just like her, do you believe
that that is a serious offense against the public trust?
Mrs. Dunn. Yes. My border not being secure is a serious
offense. Other legislators, worried about other people from
other countries instead of my own is a serious offense. I take
great offense to that. I think you need to be worried about us.
Mr. D'Esposito. Thank you. Ms. Nobles, the same question.
Do you feel that what happened to your daughter and the crimes
that have been committed against Americans by individuals who
have illegally crossed our border, do you think that those are
serious offenses against the public trust?
Ms. Nobles. Yes, definitely.
Mr. D'Esposito. So Secretary Mayorkas and his failed border
policies have placed all Americans in danger. Every State is a
border State, and every State has seen the impact of the crisis
at our Southern Border. It is what we have outlined over the
five phases in this committee.
Proud to be a retired NYPD detective, having spent a career
upholding my oath to protect and serve the places that I kept
safe. That solemn oath is now that much harder for law
enforcement throughout this country, have been put on the front
lines of this crisis as a direct result of the failed policies
of Secretary Mayorkas.
As I just stated, every State is a border State. Ms.
Nobles, your daughter was tragically murdered in Maryland, well
over 1,000 miles from the Southern Border. I know that the man
who murdered your daughter was a well-known MS-13 gang member.
In 2018, President Trump came to Long Island with then-
Congressman Peter King to discuss MS-13 and the heinous crimes
they commit both on Long Island and throughout this country.
You see, back then, we had an administration who actively
worked to find solutions to the issues occurring at our
Southern Border. They worked with law enforcement to make sure
that they had the tools necessary to protect and serve their
communities. Now we have Secretary Mayorkas, who has put all
Americans in danger. In Nassau County, we have identified 271
MS-13 members.
Ms. Nobles, do you believe that Secretary Mayorkas has
taken adequate measures to ensure MS-13 members and other
members of criminal organizations are not able to enter this
Nation illegally?
Ms. Nobles. No. Absolutely not.
Mr. D'Esposito. Ms. Dunn, just this morning, I spoke with
Commissioner Pat Ryder, who is the commissioner of the Nassau
County Police Department. My district, well over thousands of
miles from the Southern Border, is still seeing dozens of
overdoses each week with drugs flowing from our Southern
Border. We know that it takes an incredibly small amount of
fentanyl to kill someone and harm families and communities.
Do you know the amount of fentanyl that killed your
daughter?
Mrs. Dunn. Sir, my daughter used one-half of one tablet
that she believed was Percocet. In that one-half of one tablet,
there was 5 milligrams of fentanyl, enough to kill 2\1/2\
people.
Mr. D'Esposito. Two-and-a-half people?
Mrs. Dunn. Correct.
Mr. D'Esposito. In 5 milligrams?
Mrs. Dunn. Yes.
Mr. D'Esposito. Since Mayorkas has been the Secretary of
Homeland Security 25 billion milligrams of fentanyl has come
across our Southern Border and, unfortunately, has killed many
others, tragically, just like your daughter.
Mrs. Dunn. Yes.
Mr. D'Esposito. It is very clear that America and the
people who live here are at risk. Secretary Mayorkas deserves
to be impeached because he has committed serious offenses
against the public trust of the United States of America.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Green. The gentlemen yields.
I now recognize the gentleman from New York, Mr. Goldman,
for 5 minutes of questioning.
Mr. Goldman. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I thank our
witnesses for being here today.
Ms. Nobles and Ms. Dunn, I just want to express my sincere
condolences. I was a Federal prosecutor for 10 years who
charged people for gang-related and drug trafficking crimes.
Unfortunately, this is not the first time I have had to
interact with families of victims, and my heart goes out to
you.
I want to apologize in some ways to you that you are here
really to share your story, but you are being used as a fact
witness for an impeachment investigation. Obviously, given, you
know, what your experience has been, you don't have the
background to understand what a high crime or misdemeanor is
and how it relates to this. So I hope that you are handling
that OK.
You know, one of the things that the Chairman said at the
beginning of his opening statement was that he wishes that
Democrats would turn our sympathy into action. And quite
ironically said, thoughts and prayers are not enough. At first,
I thought we were at a gun violence hearing where we were
talking about the repeated thoughts and prayers of the two mass
shootings that happen every day.
But I do want to just go through some of the actions, as
the Chairman pointed out, turn sympathy into action. Because I
assume, Ms. Dunn, you would agree, would you not, that it would
help to stop the fentanyl trade and fentanyl trafficking from
coming into this country if we had more law enforcement
officers at the border and more resources and technology to
stop the fentanyl from coming in? Do you agree with that?
Mrs. Dunn. I disagree with that because Border Patrol is
now being used to make sandwiches and to screen people and let
them into our country.
Mr. Goldman. OK. Well, so----
Mrs. Dunn. So I disagree with you.
Mr. Goldman. So you are saying that you are upset because
the Border Patrol is not doing--is making sandwiches, I think
you said, so you don't think it would be helpful to have more
Border Patrol officers who are charged with stopping the
fentanyl trade?
Mrs. Dunn. I would like the Border Patrol to be able to do
the job that they were hired to do.
Mr. Goldman. Well, one way--I am sorry.
Mrs. Dunn. Every Border Patrol officer that I have spoken
to has told me that their hands are tied by this administration
and Mr. Mayorkas. I have been to the border, sir. Have you?
Mr. Goldman. Excuse me, I am asking the questions.
Mrs. Dunn. I'm just wondering.
Mr. Goldman. The problem with that is that in Congress,
this Congress, we have interviewed 9 senior officials under DHS
in a variety of different capacities. Every single one of them
has said that it would be helpful to provide more resources at
the border to stop the flow of fentanyl coming in. That is
actually exactly what President Biden has done.
In last year's budget, fiscal year 2023, the
appropriations, it included 300 additional U.S. Border Patrol
agents, which was the first increase since 2011; included 125
more CBP officers; $70 million for nonintrusive inspection. Two
hundred House Republicans, including every single Republican
serving at the time who currently sits on this committee, voted
against that bill.
Under the Biden administration, the Department of Homeland
Security has seized more fentanyl and arrested more criminals
for fentanyl-related crimes in the last 2 years than in the
previous 5 years combined. Even in this Congress, when we had
the Department of Homeland Security appropriations markup, Mr.
Correa offered an amendment that would provide more money and
more resources for the border to stop the fentanyl trade, and
every single Republican voted it down.
But that is not it. Even with the supplemental request from
the White House, they requested $1.2 billion to crack down on
the trafficking of dangerous and lethal illicit drugs like
fentanyl, including over $300 million for the most effective
nonintrusive inspection systems. Of course, 90 percent of
fentanyl comes through the ports of entry, so having those
inspection systems would do it. Again, the Republicans will not
support the border with additional resources to do the job that
the Secretary wants to do.
So we are here yet again for a political stunt to make an
argument that this administration is not doing anything, even
as it is negotiating to try to address the problems at the
border, and even as it is trying to increase the number of
border agents and technology to address the fentanyl system.
Let's stop this sham impeachment hearing, and let's go
negotiate with the Senate and the White House, who are doing
that right now with Secretary Mayorkas, to address the problems
at the border.
I yield back.
Chairman Green. The gentleman yields.
I now recognize the gentleman from North Carolina, Mr.
Bishop, for his 5 minutes of questioning.
Mr. Bishop. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Dunn, I was watching you as we listened to my friend
from New York just now and heard what you said. You did a
fantastic job sort-of defeating his point in the little bit of
time he gave you.
But as he was saying that they make the issue that
Republicans aren't sending more money to the border. What every
jurisdiction in the United States, notably New York, Chicago,
and others, are suffering is a deluge of immigrants that the
country cannot assimilate. They are not prepared to be
assimilated culturally, by linguistic background, by
experience. We can't get the job done that way.
The only proposals that Democrats have offered, let this go
down on record, the only proposals that have been offered is to
send more money to the border, which will be used to process
more immigrants faster into the country, No. 1; or No. 2, to
legalize them all, grant them amnesty, as if that would somehow
address any of the problems that we are experiencing. Not one
of them would be addressed.
So I appreciate, Ms. Nobles, you, and Ms. Dunn, you, for
being here. It must be particularly infuriating to hear that
when you have suffered the ultimate victimhood from the
violations of law that the Secretary of Homeland Security has
administered.
So, Professor Pearlstein, I want to go you, though, because
I want to talk about that victim, the rule of law. You said in
your paper in defense of Secretary Mayorkas that to the extent
the majority of reports, allegations against the Secretary are
related to those policies, in particular the suggestion that
Secretary Mayorkas somehow exceeded the scope of his lawful
authority to set priorities for the enforcement of U.S.
immigration law, that claim has been rejected, most recently by
an overwhelming bipartisan majority of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Now, are you referring to the United States v. Texas case
from last June?
Ms. Pearlstein. I am.
Mr. Bishop. But there the majority opinion says, ``We take
no position on whether the Executive branch here is complying
with its legal obligations. We hold only that the Federal
Courts are not the proper forum to resolve this dispute.''
So when you read that language, how do you come to the
conclusion that the Court decided that Secretary Majorkas is
acting in accordance with his legal responsibilities?
Ms. Pearlstein. The basis of the Court's ruling on standing
that you just described was, as Justice Kavanaugh's opinion for
the majority said, ``The authority to decide how to prioritize
and how aggressively to pursue legal actions against defendants
belongs to the Executive branch under Article II.'' That was
the basis of the ruling that there is no standing in this case.
In other words----
Mr. Bishop. Well, they also said they have taken no
position whether the Executive branch is complying with its
legal obligations.
Ms. Pearlstein. The Justice that former President Trump----
Mr. Bishop. How is that?
Ms. Pearlstein [continuing]. Appointed said, this is
authority that belongs exclusively to the Executive branch.
Mr. Bishop. Right. What you are referring to is the Court
says, we are not in the business of refereeing anything where
the Executive has any amount of prosecutorial discretion. But
they also say, we are not deciding here whether the Executive
branch is complying with its legal obligations. Both of those
propositions are true. They are both in the opinion, are they
not, ma'am?
Ms. Pearlstein. The Court found that there was no standing
because----
Mr. Bishop. No, ma'am. I asked you a question.
Ms. Pearlstein. The Court found----
Mr. Bishop. This proposition is in the opinion as well,
correct? I read it. It is accurate.
Ms. Pearlstein. The Court found there was no standing. That
is also true.
Mr. Bishop. I didn't ask you about standing. I asked you
whether this language that I just read where the Court said, we
are not determining whether the Executive branch is complying
with its legal obligations, that is also in the Court's
opinion, correct?
Ms. Pearlstein. That may be in the Court's opinion, but
what I said----
Mr. Bishop. That is what I asked. Thank you.
Let me ask you this, at the oral argument, this was Justice
Kavanaugh's question to the Solicitor General, Solicitor
General of the United States, ``I think your position is
instead of judicial review, Congress has to resort to shutting
down the Government or impeachment or dramatic steps if some
administration comes in and says, we're not going to enforce
laws or at least not going to enforce the laws to the degree
that Congress by law has said the laws should be enforced.''
That is forcing--I mean, I understand your position, but it is
forcing Congress to take dramatic steps. Isn't that what he
said at oral argument?
Ms. Pearlstein. I don't have the transcript of oral
argument.
Mr. Bishop. All right. Do you disagree with his proposition
as I just recited it to you?
Ms. Pearlstein. Justice Alito said in his lone dissent that
impeachment, along with funding cutoffs and others, were among
the potentially available remedies that Congress has. The
majority opinion, none of the other 8 Justices, including all
of the Justices appointed by the former President, mentioned
impeachment in that context.
Mr. Bishop. So are you familiar with the Illegal
Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act of 1996?
Ms. Pearlstein. It's a large act. Which part?
Mr. Bishop. The part that the United States Supreme Court
considered in United States v. Texas.
Ms. Pearlstein. I've read the case.
Mr. Bishop. OK. Do you know that as Justice Alito describes
in the dissent, that in that situation, the Congress decided to
withdraw some of the discretion that the Executive has by
requiring detention and specifically in certain cases, right?
Ms. Pearlstein. What the Court said was that for the last
27 years, since these laws--that law was enacted in their
current form, all 5 Presidential administrations have
determined the resource constraints necessitated prioritization
in making immigration addresses.
Mr. Bishop. If you evaded a question like that before the
bench, they would not like it.
I yield back, Mr. Chairman. My time has expired.
Chairman Green. The gentleman yields.
I now recognize the gentleman from California, Mr.
Swalwell, for his 5 minutes of questioning.
Mr. Swalwell. Appreciate that. Thank you, Chairman.
First, I want to thank Ms. Nobles and Mrs. Dunn for
testifying and express my condolences for the loss of your
children and to tell you that I have constituents as well who
have lost children to fentanyl. I know it is not easy to come
to Congress and to talk about it. I hope that what you will
find one day is a Congress that will unite and do everything it
can to make sure that we reduce these deaths.
I also wish we could hear from Secretary Mayorkas because
he has stated he wants to come and testify. I know Mr.
Magaziner put into the record a letter from Mr. Mayorkas
stating that he, again, would be willing to testify. He has
testified 27 times to Congress, more than any other Cabinet
official, and twice last year before this committee. He has
made his senior officials available.
To the witnesses who have come here today, if you came
looking for an audience that is serious and wants, you know, to
take up this issue, I am afraid you are in the wrong place. I
am afraid that when it comes to immigration solutions, too many
of my colleagues would rather have the issue than the fix.
I am speaking for myself here, and I know I probably speak
for many of my colleagues, I don't want open borders. I want a
secure border. That is why I have supported surging more border
agents at the border. That is why I support deploying more
technologies at the border. That is why I support having more
barriers at the border. That is why I want to make sure that we
also address the workforce crisis in America by, you know,
increasing legal immigration and increasing immigrants who can
work the jobs that Americans are just not going to work, so we
can reduce the costs and give more financial breathing room to
families in this country. You are not going to find that here.
This is not where they do that. This is where they seek fame
rather than a fix.
What you are going to find here is that if we were to solve
this crisis, this committee wouldn't have anything to talk
about. That is more important to the Speaker of this House, and
that is more important to the person that too many of them rely
upon when they make decisions, which is the former President.
I want to just give you a couple of examples. Sergeant
Dannels, I am sorry he can't be here today because last time he
was here, I asked him if he would support additional Border
Patrol agents as the Senate passed with 68 Republicans and
Democrats not too long ago, and he said he would.
I would like to have unanimous consent to enter into the
record his written testimony to our committee and to the
Oversight Committee where he said that.
Ms. Lee [presiding]. Without objection, so ordered.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Swalwell. So then you have, just recently on CNN, Jake
Tapper asked Speaker Johnson, look, President Biden wants to
give you more money at the border. Would you take that? Speaker
Johnson said no. Again, just revealing and saying out loud what
we all know, which is that they don't want to solve this
problem. They want to use it and exploit it and exploit victims
so they have a political narrative.
Senate negotiations are taking place right now where, in
good faith, Democrats and Republicans are working to try and
find more solutions and more resources at the border. That is
dead on arrival here, where Republican colleagues have said out
loud, we are never going to support that, that would help the
President. They have actually said that.
My Democratic colleagues want the fix. MAGA Republicans
want the fiction. My Democratic colleagues want the fix. My
MAGA colleagues want FOX. My Democratic colleagues want the
fix. My MAGA colleagues want the fame. That is what this is
entirely about.
If you have any questions as to whether that is what this
is about, one of the questions earlier was asking a professor
who came here to talk about immigration in the Constitution
whether she would condemn Hamas' attack on October 7. Everyone
here condemns Hamas' attack on October 7. But if that same
Member was asked, would you condemn Donald Trump's role in the
January 6 insurrection or would you condemn the people on this
committee who call the January 6 terrorists hostages, an insult
to the actual hostages, American hostages in Gaza right now, he
would take a pass. He wouldn't want to answer the question.
They couldn't answer the question because they won't condemn
it.
They don't want the fix. They want the fiction. If they
were not willing to hold Donald Trump accountable for his
impeachable crimes, I don't really want their hot take----
Ms. Lee. The gentleman's time has expired.
The gentleman----
Mr. Swalwell. I don't want their hot take on Secretary
Mayorkas.
Ms. Lee [continuing]. Is recognized----
Mr. Swalwell. I yield back.
Ms. Lee [continuing]. For 5 minutes of questioning.
Mr. Garbarino. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Ms. Nobles, Ms. Dunn, I am very sorry for your losses. I
don't have children. I couldn't imagine what you have gone
through.
But, Ms. Nobles, I want to start with you. The Department
of Homeland Security and the Department of Health and Human
Services have systems in place to ensure that unaccompanied
alien children from noncontiguous countries are transferred
from Customs and Border Protection to the Office of Refugee
Resettlement, ORR. The House Judiciary report regarding your
daughter's murder notes that ORR lost track of more than 85,000
children and placed fewer than 15,000 follow-up calls after
discharging an additional 32,000 children. At no point did
anyone from CBP or HHS flag this violent criminal who had a
criminal gang history, along with multiple MS-13 tattoos.
Ms. Nobles, does this sound like a well-run system meant to
protect American people?
Ms. Nobles. No. Her murderer was apprehended at the border
on March 2022. They had him. They did not check. They didn't
check for his background check. They let him go to an unknown
sponsor, don't even know who the sponsor is, and she takes him
to Frederick, Maryland, from Texas to Maryland. Then he ended
up in the same trailer as my daughter.
Mr. Garbarino. As you said, as it turns out, the murderer
was a known gang member, was a 16-year-old known gang member
affiliated with MS-13 in El Salvador. Since the current
administration's open border policy began, we have seen a sharp
increase in the number of known criminals crossing our Southern
Border. That has included members of MS-13, whose motto is
kill, rape, and control.
My district on Long Island has suffered from high levels of
gang activity, especially MS-13, for years. It stopped,
actually, when the former President increased--when he
increased FBI and cooperation and police protection on Long
Island. So we were actually winning the battle for a while. But
unfortunately, that is starting to change again.
You know, just this summer, a member of MS-13 pled guilty
to the murder, on Long Island, pled guilty to the murder of two
teenage girls who were attacked with baseball bats and
machetes. This is just one of the many examples.
Do you think border security and proper alien vetting is a
national security issue?
Ms. Nobles. Yes. Supposedly he is 16. We don't know his
real age.
Mr. Garbarino. Exactly.
Ms. Nobles. But they're treating him as a juvenile, but.
Mr. Garbarino. Well, that is actually, I will share, for
the UACs, one of the times I went to the border, because I have
been several times, CBP was saying that when they were
processing people who were trying to be under--trying to show
that they are under 18, they actually found real documentation
showing they were between the ages of 25 and 30. So we don't
know exactly how old he is, like you said.
Ms. Nobles. No.
Mr. Garbarino. This committee has been focused on Biden
administration's refusal to secure our Southwest Border and vet
alien arrivals. A report from the House Judiciary Committee,
like I said--like I mentioned before, pointed out multiple
vetting failures with your daughter's killer. Its report shows
that your daughter's murderer was arrested for association with
MS-13 well before he came to the United States, something that
the U.S. officials verified easily after the murder.
Unfortunately, it was after. Like you said, the report also
noted that the alien was released after he was arrested for
murder.
Do you think Secretary Mayorkas has done an adequate job
vetting illegal aliens coming across our border?
Ms. Nobles. No. Because if he was vetted, he would have
never been allowed in. He would have never been allowed to come
here and commit that horrific crime on my daughter.
Mr. Garbarino. Thank you for your answers. Again, I am very
sorry for your loss.
Ms. Nobles. Thank you. I'm not yelling at you. I'm sorry.
Mr. Garbarino. No.
Ms. Nobles. Wow.
Mr. Garbarino. It is OK. I am from New York. Sometimes our
tone gets----
Ms. Nobles. Oh, OK.
Mr. Garbarino. We get I am not yelling. This is just how I
talk.
Ms. Nobles. Well, no, I was telling you that I wasn't
yelling at you.
Mr. Garbarino. No.
Ms. Nobles. I was just, you know.
Mr. Garbarino. Ms. Dunn, quickly, the United States is in a
fentanyl crisis. We all know that. It is being inflamed by the
open Southwest Border. Illicit narcotics have resulted in
hundreds of thousands of deaths in just the past few years.
Fentanyl is highly addictive, incredibly potent, and easy to
make, which is why it is a favorite drug for the cartels and
drug traffickers. I am sure you have answered this already
today multiple times, but I think it is worth getting it on the
record multiple times. Do you believe that Secretary Mayorkas'
open borders have exacerbated the fentanyl epidemic?
Mrs. Dunn. Yes, I believe so.
Mr. Garbarino. Do you believe that Secretary Mayorkas is
doing enough to fight the scourge of fentanyl?
Mrs. Dunn. Not at all, no.
Mr. Garbarino. Why not?
Mrs. Dunn. He needs to lock down that border. Everyone
keeps saying, give them more money. Those poor Border Patrol
agents are now the welcoming committee. They are ordered to be
the welcoming committee. They don't want to be the welcoming
committee. They are told to do that by Mayorkas, by this
administration. Just like the young lady next to you had said,
it is either Mayorkas or the Biden administration. Somebody is
telling the poor Border Patrol to not do their job. No matter
how much money you give them, they are still not going to be
allowed to do their job.
Ms. Lee. The gentlemen's time has expired.
Mr. Garbarino. Thank you.
Ms. Lee. The gentleman from California is recognized for 5
minutes of questioning.
Mr. Garcia. Thank you very much. Thank you to our
witnesses.
I want to just get back to why we are here. This is, of
course, another effort and this hearing is really about
demonizing migrants and, again, smearing Secretary Mayorkas.
Professor Pearlstein, thank you for being here. Are there
any grounds, again, for impeaching Secretary Mayorkas under the
Constitution?
Ms. Pearlstein. I don't believe the Constitution supports
impeachment in this case.
Mr. Garcia. Thank you. As far as I am concerned, that is
the most important question and really gets to the heart of why
we are here today.
We talked a lot about the fentanyl crisis and fentanyl in
this committee and today. But the fentanyl crisis, we know is a
tragedy, but we also think it is important to remember who
didn't end the fentanyl crisis. That was actually Donald Trump.
Mr. Chairman, I asked unanimous consent to introduce this
article titled, ``Synthetic opioid overdose: Deaths soared
while Trump was President.''** I also would like to enter to
the record this other article, ``Opioid crisis: Critics say
Trump fumbled response to another deadly epidemic.''
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
*** The information was previously submitted in this document by
Hon. Carter.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
[The information follows:]
Submitted For the Record by Honorable Garcia
opioid crisis: critics say trump fumbled response to another deadly
epidemic
October 29, 2020 5:01 AM ET, Heard On All Things Considered
When then-Presidential candidate Donald Trump spoke in Manchester,
N.H., a week before the 2016 election, he said the opioid crisis was
destroying lives and shattering families. ``We are going to stop the
inflow of drugs into New Hampshire and into our country 100 percent,''
Trump promised.
It was a major campaign issue. Overdoses were surging in
battleground states key to the election, like New Hampshire, Ohio and
Pennsylvania.
In 2017--Trump's first year in office--more than 42,000 Americans
died from overdoses linked to heroin, fentanyl and prescription
opioids, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Before coronavirus hit, opioids were widely viewed as the nation's top
public health crisis.
Trump declared a public health emergency in October 2017, noting
that overdoses had joined gun violence and car crashes as a leading
cause of death in America. ``No part of our society, not young or old,
rich or poor, urban or rule has been spared this plague,'' he said.
Significant accomplishments followed. Trump signed legislation in
2018 that boosted Federal funding for drug treatment. During trade
talks with China last year, Trump pushed to slow that country's exports
of fentanyl. ``The Federal Government has taken some important steps to
increase access to evidence-based treatment for opioid use disorder,''
said Beau Kilmer, who heads the Rand Corporation's Drug Policy Research
Center.
Kilmer also credits Trump for ``pressuring China to better regulate
some of its synthetic opioids.''
A public health emergency, but no clear leadership
But while some progress was made, critics point to serious missteps
behind the scenes that hampered Federal efforts, including the decision
to sideline and defund the Office of National Drug Control Policy
(ONDCP). An internal memo acquired by NPR in 2017 found the White House
was contemplating a 94 percent cut in resources to the agency, tasked
since 1988 with developing and coordinating the nation's drug addiction
efforts.
That decision was later reversed but Trump handed leadership of the
opioid response to a series of political appointees, including former
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and White House adviser Kellyanne
Conway.
``This made it difficult for people to understand, you know, who's
leading and coordinating the effort on opioids,'' Kilmer said.
Still, there seemed to be some success, with opioid deaths dipping
slightly in 2018. ``This sign of progress is an example of what can
happen when an administration prioritizes an issue,'' said ONDCP
director Jim Carroll in a statement earlier this year. But in 2019, the
number of overdoses surged again to a new record with more than 50,000
opioid-related fatalities. The CDC's preliminary data shows another big
increase in deaths during the first 4 months of 2020.
U.S. went 2 years without a national strategy
Researchers also say fentanyl has continued to spread fast, despite
interdiction efforts, contributing to more overdose deaths in the
western United States where the synthetic opioid had been scarce. In
December, the Government Accountability Office issued a report blasting
the administration for failing to come up with a coherent national
opioid strategy as required by law. ``ONDCP did not issue a national
drug control strategy for either 2017 or 2018,'' the GAO concluded.
The ONDCP declined an interview request for this story, but a
spokesman told NPR in an email that the agency has addressed the GAO's
concerns and is once again functioning in full compliance.
``ONDCP has released several documents that together address all of
the statutory requirements that GAO noted as missing,'' the spokesman
said.
But in recent months, even some members of the Trump administration
have begun voicing alarm.
``Basically everything is pointed in the wrong direction,'' said
Adm. Brett Giroir, assistant secretary for health and an opioid policy
expert at the Department of Health and Human Services.
During a panel discussion in late July, Giroir described recent
increases in opioid overdoses as ``a nightmare,'' adding that ``all the
progress that we made has been reversed and this is even before the
pandemic.''
Trump attack on Affordable Care Act threatens opioid response
Drug policy experts say things could grow even worse in the months
ahead if Trump is successful in dismantling the Affordable Care Act.
The program created during the Obama Administration subsidizes
State Medicaid programs that provide insurance coverage for roughly 40
percent of Americans receiving opioid addiction treatment. ``We've seen
very large increases in the number of individuals going to treatment
programs,'' said Brendan Saloner, a researcher at Johns Hopkins
Bloomberg School of Public Health.
If the Supreme Court strikes down the ACA, as Trump has urged,
those gains in insurance coverage and care would likely be reversed.
``The situation is bleak and it could be a lot bleaker,'' Saloner
said.
Meanwhile, Democrat Joe Biden has released a plan of his own
promising to end the overdose crisis if he's elected. His No. 1 policy
idea? Preserve and expand the Affordable Care Act.
Mr. Garcia. I bring these documents up because I think it
is really important to note that during Trump's presidency, the
fentanyl crisis had already been a huge challenge across this
country. In fact, Trump said before the 2016 election, he said
the opioid crisis was destroying lives and shattering families.
He said, ``We are going to stop the inflow of drugs into New
Hampshire and into our country 100 percent.'' One hundred
percent, Trump promised. In 2017, Trump's first year in office,
more than 42,000 Americans died from overdoses linked to
heroin, fentanyl, and prescription opioids. There was a huge
fentanyl problem when Donald Trump was President. The
administration didn't even bother to issue a National strategy
on fentanyl in his first 2 years in office. So I think it is
crazy that the Majority is trying to turn this into a public
health crisis that's somehow new or began during the Biden
administration.
Unfortunately, this is about much larger issues that we
have, because our conversation today isn't about the
Constitution or the law. It is not even about securing the
border. The Majority is not interested in solutions. Donald
Trump, as always, has said the quiet part out loud when he said
immigrants, and I quote, ``are poisoning the blood of our
country.''
As we know, this is rhetoric that can be compared to Hitler
and the kind of rhetoric that he used. Extremists here in
Congress also continue to push issues like the Great
Replacement Theory.
We should be clear, immigrants are some of the most
patriotic and hardworking people there are in this country. I
just heard a committee Member say, and I quote, ``They are not
prepared to be assimilated,'' talking about immigrants. I am an
immigrant. I think I am pretty well-assimilated here. I am a
Member of Congress.
So I think it is very un-American to attack and demonize
migrants the way that some in this Majority continue to do.
Immigrants aren't here to poison or victimize the American
people.
I also want to just touch on this issue of crime. Some in
the Majority continue to talk about crime, and crime is a
horrific tragedy. Clearly, I feel horrible for our witnesses
that are here that have lost members of their family. But let's
look at real data as well.
Both undocumented and documented immigrants are much less
likely to commit crimes or be incarcerated than native-born
American citizens. Our border communities are often safer from
violent crimes than many interior cities. According to FBI
crime data, crime in border communities was measured to
actually be 15 percent lower than the national average. So from
a crime perspective, more crime is being committed by American
citizens than those folks that are undocumented or that are
immigrants.
Democrats also want an orderly and secure border. We want
real solutions to the fentanyl crisis. But we need to
understand the problems we are trying to solve. We need
solutions, legislation, not impeachments of the Secretary and
certainly not impeachments of President Biden.
The idea that any of these problems will be solved by the
border alone, I think, is also crazy. These problems have
existed for decades. We haven't had immigration reform or any
sort of policy in over 30 years. Without legal pathways, we
won't never have an orderly border. That is also a fact.
We can't have a conversation with a Presidential candidate,
a former President, who thinks immigrants are poisoning the
blood of our Nation, who thinks that we should build a moat
with alligators along the border, who thinks that we should put
spikes on the wall that he is trying to build, who has said
that we should shoot migrants in the legs as they are crossing
the border, who thinks we should send missiles into northern
Mexico. These are the ideas being offered by the likely nominee
of the Republican Party and by many on this committee and in
the Republican majority.
We need to have real solutions. We don't need Donald
Trump's horrific policies to come back to this country, and we
certainly shouldn't be impeaching Secretary Mayorkas.
With that, I yield back.
Ms. Lee. I now recognize myself for 5 minutes.
For months now we have been hearing the staggering
statistics about the catastrophe at our Southern Border, the
millions of migrants coming across our border illegally, the
human trafficking, the fentanyl, the lost unaccompanied minors.
But today we hear something that is even more important than
that. Today we hear the real personal stories of unfathomable
loss and irreplaceable lives.
Yet, even in the face of this testimony that we have heard
today and the testimony that came before it, our colleagues
across the aisle impugn the purpose and the necessity of this
hearing, calling it a political sham, calling it a stunt,
calling it theater. They suggest that what we actually need to
do is pass more laws.
So, as a former Federal prosecutor and judge, I will start
today with a refresher on a few of the things that are
currently illegal in the United States of America. It is
illegal to traffic fentanyl in the United States of America.
Human trafficking is illegal in this country. Theft is illegal
in this country. Rape and murder are illegal in this country.
What is more, the Department of Homeland Security has an
absolute obligation to detain and remove those who enter this
country illegally.
We do not need more laws. We need a President of the United
States and a Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security
who enforce the laws of this country.
But what do we have instead? An administration that has
deliberately subverted the duly-enacted laws of the United
States of America, that have deliberately defied the orders of
courts in this United States of America, who have ordered and
directed that they desist these unlawful policies. We have the
Department of Homeland Security that has defied inquiries from
the U.S. Congress.
As for the 27 appearances of Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas
in front of this Congress, not one of those times did he admit
that we have lost operational control of our border, that we
have ceded control of our border to the Mexican drug cartels,
or acknowledge the scope, scale, and crisis that our
communities all across America face as a consequence, as a
direct consequence, of these lawless policies.
Every single time an individual is allowed to enter this
country unlawfully, Americans are less safe.
Ms. Nobles, Mrs. Dunn, as a mother, I see my child and my
family in those photos that you shared with us today, and it is
truly something that we cannot fathom the loss that you have
each suffered. I thank you for your willingness to come here
today and share with us your stories. I would like to hear your
perspective, please, on what more Congress could be doing to
support you and to try to prevent this type of unspeakable
tragedy from happening in the lives of another family.
We will start with you, Ms. Nobles.
Ms. Nobles. I would like to see every illegal immigrant who
wants to come here to be properly vetted and background-
checked. I hear a lot about more funding, resources, and all
that. How is that going to help them do their job in the first
place? They failed Kayla by not checking her murderer's
background and did not make that one phone call. One. One phone
call could have saved my baby's life. They didn't. After he was
arrested, they put him--some Child Protective Services took him
and put him in an unsecured children's home with other
children.
I know Americans commit crimes on other Americans, but why
do we have to take other countries' trash? Why do we need them?
Ms. Lee. Ms. Dunn.
Mrs. Dunn. We talked about a lot today about more resources
at the border. I appreciate that and I respect that. But I
don't think that Members in this room and other rooms at the
Capitol understand that we are actually at war. We are at war
with the cartels.
We are losing our children. We are losing a generation of
children. We are at war. We need our military at the border.
That is what we need. We don't need more Border Patrol. We need
our military at the border stopping the drugs, stopping people
from coming in. They can't come in. We are full. We are closed.
That is it. No more money. No more. No more sandwiches. It is
closed. I am sorry. Come through the proper channels.
I am a first-generation American. My parents both migrated
here. Guess what. They did it legally.
Ms. Lee. Thank you, Mrs. Dunn. My time has expired.
I now recognize the gentleman from New Jersey for 5 minutes
of questioning.
Mr. Menendez. Thank you. Thank you to the witnesses for
appearing here today. I appreciate you sharing your stories,
and I am sorry for your immeasurable grief. The folks on this
committee look forward to working together in a way where we
can solve some of the challenges that are facing our country.
But since this is an impeachment hearing, I will direct my
questions to Professor Pearlstein.
As the professor has observed, there are provisions of the
Constitution that are murky and subject to debate and
provisions that are clear. Article II, section 4, is clear.
Treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanors are
the only Constitutionally-permissible grounds for impeachment.
My Republican colleagues have not come close to making a
Constitutionally-sound case for impeachment against Secretary
Mayorkas.
They have incorrectly argued that the Secretary's
designations of certain groups as eligible for parole
constitutes ``mass parole and is inconsistent with law.'' Each
case is considered on a discretionary case-by-case basis, which
is a requirement in the Immigration and Nationality Act.
It is worth noting that parole authority has been used by
every administration since President Eisenhower, who paroled
30,000 Hungarian nationals fleeing communism.
Professor Pearlstein, does the Secretary's exercise of
well-established parole authority constitute treason, bribery,
or other high crimes and misdemeanors?
Ms. Pearlstein. I don't believe it does, no.
Mr. Menendez. Thank you. My Republican colleagues have also
argued that Secretary Mayorkas is violating the law by
releasing migrants awaiting adjudication of their asylum
claims. That claim is not true and that practice is not new. In
fact, DHS released hundreds of thousands of individuals at the
U.S.-Mexico border under President Trump.
Professor Perlstein, does detaining migrants in a matter
consistent with the law and the resources provided by this
Congress, constitute treason, bribery, or other high crimes and
misdemeanors?
Ms. Pearlstein. No, it doesn't.
Mr. Menendez. Finally, my Republican colleagues have also
incorrectly criticized the Secretary's guidelines for the
enforcement of civil immigration law, which prioritize
enforcement actions based on National security, public safety,
and border security. But as Justice Kavanaugh observed in
United States v. Texas, Article II of the Constitution confers
upon the Executive branch the ``authority to decide how to
prioritize and how aggressively to pursue legal actions against
defendants who violate the law.'' That principle extends to the
immigration context.
Professor Pearlstein, does exercising well-established
authority to prioritize immigration enforcement actions
constitute treason, bribery, or other high crimes and
misdemeanors?
Ms. Pearlstein. No, sir.
Mr. Menendez. Thank you. This committee has engaged in
months of so-called investigations into the administration's
border security policies. Despite all the time and resources
committee Republicans have invested, they still cannot make a
case for impeaching the Secretary that meets Constitutional
muster.
Instead of wasting more time on a baseless impeachment, we
should get back to the work of passing bills that will actually
help solve problems. But Republicans don't seem interested in
that.
They made their immigration proposal, H.R. 2, as cruel and
unworkable as possible, rejecting every amendment Democrats on
this committee offered in good faith, amendments some
Republicans agreed would improve the bill. Everyone on this
committee wants to fight the scourge of fentanyl in this
country. That is why during our markup of H.R. 2, I offered an
amendment to authorize the Biden administration's Operation
Blue Lotus, an aggressive strategy for fighting drug
trafficking with a proven record of stopping fentanyl from
being smuggled into the country. But every one of my Republican
colleagues voted against it. Why? Because while they talk the
talk, they refuse to walk the walk.
H.R. 2, you talk about it in every response. What is your
alternative to H.R. 2? Why does it have to be H.R. 2 or
nothing? If you are serious about figuring out the border, work
with us. Let's come up with another solution. But you go back
to H.R. 2 every time you are challenged about the substance of
what we are doing here while you are in the Majority on the
border. Come up with a second proposal or a third proposal that
can pass this House, be signed into law, and we can get to
work.
You sit on H.R. 2, you point to H.R. 2 and say, that is the
work we have done. Meanwhile, you bring these witnesses here to
talk about the tragedies they have experienced. But what are we
doing now? What is your proposal now besides H.R. 2? There is
nothing. There is nothing.
This is about scoring political points. You want to make
this administration look weak on the border. When are we going
to put our country above party again?
I believe in you guys. I believe you want to do that. Let's
do it. But talking about H.R. 2 as a solution is a farce. One
day, I do hope that we can work together on these issues. I
would love to do that, because the work of this country is
critical, and we need to get to it.
With that, I yield back.
Ms. Lee. I now recognize the gentleman from New York for 5
minutes of questioning.
Mr. LaLota. I appreciate my colleague from New Jersey's
comments. I do believe he is operating in good faith, but I
just think he is wrong. While there is squabbles between
Members of both parties in this committee, the Executive branch
has every power in its toolbox to get this done right away. It
can reinstate Remain in Mexico. It can stop the repositioning
of border agents away from the border and toward micro
processing centers. It can do things on its own through
executive action to clean up this mess.
H.R. 2 is our response to that. That would require the
administration to do those things to protect Americans.
Madam Chairman, we spent 13 months in this committee laying
out the case that our border is not secure and Americans are
with us on this. Sixty-seven percent of Americans think the
President is failing in his duty to secure the border.
Much of our case in the last 13 months has been backed up
by data, some pretty big numbers. Millions of migrants
unlawfully mass-paroled into the United States, hundreds of
thousands of gotaways, and tens of thousands of fentanyl
deaths.
But today, it is not about the data. Before us today are
two actual victims of Secretary Mayorkas' open border, a mother
whose daughter was sexually assaulted and murdered by an MS-13
member and another member whose daughter was fatally poisoned
by fentanyl.
Ms. Dunn and Ms. Nobles, as a father of 3 young girls for
whom I would do and give anything, I can literally not imagine
what you are going through. I appreciate you being here today,
ripping off some of the scabs of the wound that has been caused
and telling us your story so that we could be more informed and
help solve this problem. Appreciate you being here today.
Madam Chairman, if we had a more secure border, these
horrific tragedies could have been avoided. If Secretary
Mayorkas stopped paroling mass groups of migrants into the
United States these tragedies could have been avoided. If
Secretary Mayorkas stopped repositioning border agents away
from the border just to sit behind a desk to process more and
more unvetted migrants into the United States we would have
less grieving mothers.
Madam Chairman, the Biden administration has often falsely
claimed that 90 percent of all fentanyl comes through ports of
entry. I actually have a video of Secretary Mayorkas claiming
that, and if we could play that, please.
[Video shown.]
Mr. LaLota. The Secretary is wrong and he is smart enough
to know that he is wrong. Ninety percent only accounts for what
is seized and not what actually makes it across the borders.
Only the cartels, probably, who are profiting millions, tens of
millions a month, know how much fentanyl is actually making
across the borders.
In fact, Border Patrol officials have told this committee
they believe that only 5 to 10 percent of fentanyl is actually
seized. The fact there are more than 70,000 deaths in our
country in 2022 from fentanyl should be a telltale sign that
fentanyl is flooding into this country, not only through ports
of entry, but in between ports of entry as well.
Ms. Dunn, do you think that pulling Border Patrol agents
away from the border just to have them sit behind a desk to
mass process more and more migrants into the country is a wise
decision?
Mrs. Dunn. No.
Mr. LaLota. Do you think that that decision leads to more
opportunities for the cartels to traffic fentanyl into this
country?
Mrs. Dunn. Yes.
Mr. LaLota. Thank you. What impact, and I know you have the
most personal of experience, but what impact do you think that
fentanyl has had on the public health of the United States?
Mrs. Dunn. Well, the most obvious one that I can see is I
have a grandson that doesn't have a mother. He has other family
that is able to raise him. But we haven't even begin to talk
about the foster care system and how many children have lost
their parents, little babies under 18 that are now wards of the
States. Where's all that money coming from? Let's think about
the traumas and sadness and what it's like to not have parents
because their parents died from fentanyl.
Mr. LaLota. Ms. Dunn, the Secretary knows your story, and
he knows of other stories like yours, and he hasn't changed his
policies. He hasn't insisted those border agents stay on the
border. He hasn't canceled the mass parole of migrants to the
United States.
What could you say with respect to the Secretary's likely
approach and his care for situations like yours, given that he
hasn't changed his policies?
Mrs. Dunn. It's very difficult for me to contain what I
would say.
Mr. LaLota. I appreciate that.
Mrs. Dunn. I'd rather not say what I would like to say.
Mr. LaLota. You are a classy person, and I appreciate you
being here before us today.
I yield.
Chairman Green. The gentlemen yields.
I now recognize Ms. Clarke from New York for her 5 minutes
of questioning.
Ms. Clarke. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank our Ranking
Member. Good afternoon.
Thank you to our witnesses for appearing here today. To our
bereaved mothers, you have my deepest condolences.
Earlier today, my colleagues discussed Republican
opposition to providing CBP much-needed resources in the fiscal
year 2023 funding bill. But that isn't the only time
Republicans have opposed resources to secure our border.
In October, President Biden sent Congress a supplemental
funding request for fiscal year 2024, which included an
additional $13.6 billion for border security. It would provide
an additional 1,300 Border Patrol agents to work alongside the
20,200 agents already funded by the requested fiscal year 2024
budget, 375 immigration judges, teams to strengthen the
immigration court system, 1,600 asylum officers to speed up
processing of asylum claims, 1,000 CBP officers with a focus on
countering fentanyl, new detection technology for ports of
entry, more immigration detention beds, additional
investigative capabilities to combat fentanyl trafficking, and
$600 million more in grants to help communities receiving
migrants, among other investments.
As Secretary Mayorkas and bipartisan members of the Senate
are in negotiations to get these much-needed resources enacted,
House Republicans are just absent. Instead, they are focused on
impeaching Secretary Mayorkas.
Professor Pearlstein, do impeachment resolutions change
policy?
Ms. Pearlstein. No, ma'am.
Ms. Clarke. Do they provide resources or authorize funding?
Ms. Pearlstein. No, ma'am.
Ms. Clarke. Even if House Republicans' attempt to impeach
Secretary Mayorkas is successful, the Senate would have to
convict, isn't that correct?
Ms. Pearlstein. Yes, that's true.
Ms. Clarke. How many Senators are required to convict the
Secretary?
Ms. Pearlstein. Conviction requires two-thirds of the
Senate.
Ms. Clarke. After a conviction, what happens next?
Ms. Pearlstein. The person would be removed from office and
the President has the opportunity to appoint someone new.
Ms. Clarke. The Secretary would be removed and for a period
of time, pending confirmation of a new Secretary, another
official would serve as Acting Secretary, is that correct?
Ms. Pearlstein. That's correct.
Ms. Clarke. Would that individual be obligated to execute
the administration's policies?
Ms. Pearlstein. Yes, he serves at the pleasure of the
President.
Ms. Clarke. So, functionally, nothing would change?
Ms. Pearlstein. That's correct.
Ms. Clarke. If, instead, House Republicans decided to
negotiate and pass the President's supplemental appropriations,
what effect would that have on resources and policy?
Ms. Pearlstein. Congress could pass laws today that have
enormous effect not just on the availability of resources, but
how those resources are allocated. So if Congress is unhappy
with, for example, where officers are placed, Congress can
impose conditions on existing funds that require the President
to do something different. If they believe that the President
or the Secretary is not complying with those laws, they can
challenge them in court. That's exactly the process that's been
playing out in recent years.
Ms. Clarke. Very well.
Mr. Chairman, Republicans have a choice. They can continue
to pursue this sham impeachment of Secretary Mayorkas, which
will change nothing, and, in fact, could slow down efforts to
address challenges at the Southwest Border or they can work
with the White House and bipartisan members of the Senate on
legislation to improve border security and reduce drug
trafficking. I urge my colleagues to get back to work for the
American people.
With that, I thank you, and I yield back.
Chairman Green. The gentlelady yields.
I now recognize Mr. Strong for his 5 minutes of
questioning.
Mr. Strong. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Nobles, my heart goes out to you for the loss to your
daughter. Thank you for being here with us today and for
sharing her story.
As you have been told, this committee today, the man that
took Kayla's life, was in this country illegally. He was
originally from El Salvador, where he was a known member of the
MS-13 gang, a fact which was later easily verified both by his
gang tattoos and by a simple call to the El Salvador
government.
Ms. Nobles, does it concern you that Secretary Mayorkas has
not made any significant changes to his border policies,
especially ones that make it easier for illegal aliens to enter
and continually be released into our country without proper
vetting?
Ms. Nobles. Yes, very concerning, because I don't want this
to happen to someone else's daughter or child.
Mr. Strong. Thank you. In August 2023, there was an
individual arrested in Alabama whose background is stunningly
similar to Kayla's murderer. He was an El Salvador illegal here
in the United States. He was also a member of the MS-13 and on
El Salvador's top 100 Most Wanted list. He earned a spot on
this list for aggravated kidnapping, attempted aggravated
homicide, aggravated homicide, aggravated extortion, and
terrorist organization. He was previously deported, yet
Mayorkas opened the border and was able to make it back into
this country.
You start looking at this, Ms. Noble, this illustrates what
we both know to be true. These are, unfortunately, not isolated
events. As a matter of fact, from fiscal year 2021 to date,
Border Patrol has recorded 41,162 arrests of illegal aliens
with criminal backgrounds, approximately 88 percent higher than
the combined previous fiscal years, the 4 years combined.
Ms. Nobles, shouldn't just one instance that an illegal
alien has endangered or taken the life of an innocent American
like your daughter be a wake-up call to Secretary Mayorkas and
President Biden?
Ms. Nobles. Yes, most definitely.
Mr. Strong. As a Member just said, there are no experts to
raise their hands and say Mayorkas should be impeached.
Ms. Nobles and Ms. Dunn, let me get one thing straight. You
are experts. You lost it all.
As a matter of fact, it has been more than just one
instance. In Alabama alone, May 2023, an illegal alien from
Honduras raped a teenage girl in a restaurant bathroom.
November 2022, an illegal alien sodomized a 13-year-old boy.
July 2022, an illegal immigrant from Mexico killed and
dismembered a woman's body and her child. The lone survivor, a
12-year-old girl, escaped after watching this horrific scene
and being held captive with the decomposing remains.
How many more stories like this will it take for Secretary
Mayorkas and the Biden administration to wake up? The Stay in
Mexico Act, it worked. The Stay in Mexico Act, it worked. I
don't care which President was there, whether it was Obama,
whether it was Trump. The Stay in Mexico Act worked. Process
them, fuel up ICE Air, send them back to the country of their
origin. If not this, then what will compel them to act?
I agree, Secretary Mayorkas is not the solution. He is part
of the problem. He created this circus. He has failed to carry
out United States law; 8.5 million illegals have crossed the
Southern Border from 160 company countries. They have come into
our country. They are invading our country from 160 countries.
Fentanyl crossing the border by planes, mules, drones. Child
slavery is rampant, and both sides of the aisle know it.
Eighty-five thousand children illegally brought into America,
and this administration says we have no clue where they are. No
clue where they are. Guess what. They are in sex slavery in our
country. Let me answer the facts.
But I am telling you right now, both of you are experts.
You lost it all. You lost your daughters. You are an expert.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Green. The gentlemen yields.
I now recognize the gentleman from Oklahoma, Mr. Brecheen,
for his 5 minutes of testimony or questioning.
Mr. Brecheen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Given a mark-up that
is going on in Budget, appreciate your indulgences with me
slipping in.
You know, just as my colleague just talked about, just the
great loss. I thank you both very much for your courage, given
what you have been through.
We know that the decisions by Mayorkas, in addition to just
this administration's decisions, have caused chaos on our
Southern Border. Just their reluctance to simply enforce
Congressional law, whether it is parole, detention,
deportation, these are all things that Congress set up as a
barrier to protect us against the heinous acts that the mothers
in this room, your families, have been the victims of.
I want to ask you, Ms. Nobles, in your testimony, you said
that the El Salvadorian government had a documented criminal
history of your daughter's murderer. Now, we are talking about
an illegal alien who assaulted, sexually assaulted, and
murdered your daughter. They were aware of this involvement and
that there was an MS-13 gang membership also associated this
individual. How long after your daughter's death were you made
aware of this?
Ms. Nobles. At first we did not know that it was MS-13
until after the DNA evidence came back and linked him. Then
once he was arrested, then we were told it was an MS-13 gang
member. He has, like, 11 charges against him right now.
Mr. Brecheen. What was the Federal agency that provided
that information to you?
Ms. Nobles. It was no Federal. It was--it took the local
detectives to find out that he was MS-13.
Mr. Brecheen. When you were told this, were you given an
explanation why DHS, Department of Homeland Security, never
checked his body tattoos that would bring about, you know,
suspicion or contact the government to ask if he had
affiliations or a prior criminal history? Have you had a chance
to ask DHS about that failure?
Ms. Nobles. No. DHS and DHHS has failed to make a comment
or say anything to me about Kayla or anything.
Mr. Brecheen. Let me ask you, do you think, Ms. Nobles,
that the Secretary is doing everything he can to secure that
Southern Border?
Ms. Nobles. No.
Mr. Brecheen. No. I know it comes across as a question that
anyone who has lost what you have lost, you have the utmost
right to be heard by the American people. It is one thing to
abstract talk about this. It is another thing to be victimized
by someone's refusal to enforce what the law of the land is,
what Congressional law is.
If you were able to speak to Secretary Mayorkas, which, you
know, my inclination is he probably is paying attention, even
though he is refusing to come and be a part with the invitation
that our Chairman sent him, what would you say to Secretary
Mayorkas, and what questions would you ask him?
I will give you all the time you want. I am going to end my
conclusions there. When you get done, Ms. Nobles, if there is
time, Ms. Dunn, on the clock up here, I would love to hear your
comments as well. What would you tell the Secretary?
Ms. Nobles. I would ask him, how did you allow a known gang
member to be allowed in this country? How can anyone be OK with
a known gang member to come into this country and to end up in
Maryland?
I also wanted to know what else DHS and DHHS is hiding. I
was told that her murderer's file is so thick that Jim Jordan
only had 2 hours to even look at the file. What else are they
hiding about this murderer? I want to know. I mean, I'm not,
you know--I want to know what they're hiding about this
murderer. That's why he is being protected, why everything
about him is being protected.
We haven't even got to trial yet. Her trial is set for June
28 of this year, and they have 4 or 5 thick binders full of a
bunch of evidence that we haven't even--know yet. We don't even
know over half of the stuff that was done to her in that room.
Mr. Brecheen. I am going to ask you as a follow-up, I got
30 seconds left, there is a statement that talks about--I
actually quoted this to Mayorkas when he was before this
committee. It actually comes out of the Old Testament or the
Torah where it talks about blood on your hands. If you see
destruction coming, talk about a watchman, and you don't cry
out. Do you think the Secretary, based upon him knowing what is
happening, letting people come into this country, do you think
he has blood on his hands?
Ms. Nobles. Yes. He is responsible for my daughter's death.
Mr. Brecheen. Ms. Dunn.
Mrs. Dunn. I know that Secretary Mayorkas has two daughters
and they're grown adults. I just don't know how he would feel
if it was one of his daughters that he lost to either one of
these situations.
We talked a little bit today about resources. OK? I have a
resource in my purse. It's Narcan. It costs $45 in a pharmacy
in Arizona. It's not free. You want to spend some money? You
want to spend some of my tax dollars? Give this away for free
everywhere. Anywhere. Everywhere. That's what you need to spend
your money on. I don't want to spend any more money on
illegals. I want to save lives.
Mr. Brecheen. Thank you.
Chairman Green. The gentlemen yields.
I now recognize the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Luttrell, for
5 minutes of questioning.
Mr. Luttrell. Thank you all for coming today.
Everyone in here said it. I spoke to my Democratic
colleagues and my Republican colleagues, and our hearts are
with you. I hope that doesn't seem meaningless coming from
where we are sitting today.
Unfortunately, you have got to experience what Congress is
all like right here in real life. Normally, when you are
watching C-SPAN, you can usually turn it off, but this is how
we interact with each other, unfortunately. But thank you, and
I am very, very sorry for your loss.
I was a military man in my former life. When forward-
deployed overseas and tasked with securing any given area, we
followed that under the Constitution as military men because we
raised our right hand and swore to defend the Constitution of
the United States. Sometimes our jobs were to prevent movement
through any given space. Our job was to protect our men and
women that were tasked underneath us wholeheartedly,
unconditionally.
In war, you lose men and women. You do. It is just part of
the conflict. There is nothing that can be said to anybody when
that happens, but it is absolute warfare.
But as a military man, as an officer, if any given space
that I was defending, if it was rushed by individuals and
overtaken, I would be relieved of command, plain and simple. My
leadership would look down at me as, like, you failed. We are
going to relieve you of your duty.
If I lost lives, most likely, if it was negligent, I would
be relieved of duty. Depending on the surge of numbers and
however that played out, there could possibly have been a court
martial. I live by that. We all do.
So when I see these numbers, and this is where I sit, why I
am going after the impeachment is when I look to the leader
that is supposed to be defending our country and just numbers,
I don't care if Democrat, Republican, just sheer numbers,
yearly, since the Secretary has been in position, the numbers
have grown exponentially. They have. Numbers of which, if that
had happened to us overseas, it would have been catastrophic,
because if my leadership didn't take control and act
accordingly, the Navy would have, and then it would have grown
and grown and grown until we were held accountable.
Each year since the Secretary has been in place, those
numbers for fentanyl deaths, sex trade, gang members, not to
mention the amount of addiction, we talk about deaths, but the
addiction rate is astronomical. If those numbers were dipping
down, that is one thing, but they are progressively getting
worse and worse. They are out of control.
Professor, I have a question for you. I know that you don't
support the impeachment of Secretary Mayorkas Constitutionally.
Do you support the removal, given the sheer numbers that we are
seeing, do you support the removal or would you support the
removal, period, of Secretary Mayorkas because of his failures
to lead Department of Homeland Security?
Ms. Pearlstein. I'm simply not an expert on immigration
policy.
Mr. Luttrell. No, it is a personal question.
Ms. Pearlstein. I really don't have a position on the
removal of Secretary Mayorkas. As a matter of law, I don't
think the basis is----
Mr. Luttrell. No, this is personal. I know you say
Constitutionally that is not the case. You don't support that.
I understand that completely. I understand your perspective,
and I appreciate it.
But the United States is one of the leading countries in
sex trafficking. Houston, Texas, is the worst city in the
country, which is in my district. I represent over 700,000 men
and women in District 8 in the great State of Texas. They are
demanding the removal of Secretary Mayorkas. Demanding it. I am
the voice in Washington, DC, to say, hey, I am speaking for my
people, and this is what they are demanding.
So since the administration, President Biden will not
remove Mr. Mayorkas Constitutionally or however he sees it, and
I understand your perspective, what I want to hear is, do you
think Mr. Mayorkas needs to be removed because of his failure,
in my opinion, in his role?
Ms. Pearlstein. What I think you should tell your
constituents in response to their demands is that they should
vote for a different President.
Mr. Luttrell. Well, that is--amen to that. I am sure they
are on board with that exact statement.
But I do every day have to sit in front of the mothers and
fathers of them that have lost their babies and they are never
going to get their babies back. I can tell them to vote all day
long, but 4 years, it is an extremely long time to have
somebody failing us in protecting our borders. So the
Republican Party is having to act and act accordingly. That is
why this impeachment process is happening. I understand.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Green. The gentleman yields.
I now recognize the gentleman from Arizona, Mr. Crane, for
5 minutes of questioning.
Mr. Crane. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Dunn, Ms. Nobles, thank you so much for coming here
today. I thank you for your courage.
Ms. Dunn happens to be a constituent of mine. She once
confronted me at a town hall in Yavapai County and begged me to
do something about this invasion at our Southern Border.
Honestly, I couldn't blame her one bit. As a father, I would
have done the exact same thing that you did, ma'am.
Ms. Dunn, after listening to my Democratic colleagues
today, I think you probably had a decent idea of what the
problem was before you came up here, but I think it is a lot
more in focus now, is it not? I am glad you had a chance to
confront the problem today. We will continue to confront the
problem, but I am glad you got a chance to see it for yourself.
Ms. Pearlstein, you said during the audio recording that
the Chairman played one of the criteria for impeachment is
serious offenses against public trust. Do you still stand by
this comment today, ma'am?
Ms. Pearlstein. As I've explained before, offenses against
the public trust are instances in which an official is
willfully acting for his own benefit or the benefit of his own
power or on behalf of a foreign power.
Mr. Crane. Thank you. How is this border crisis that has
been planned and executed by Secretary Mayorkas not a serious
offense to public trust, Ms. Pearlstein?
Ms. Pearlstein. Having read through the materials, I see no
evidence that Secretary Mayorkas has acted on behalf of his own
benefit, financially or politically. I see no evidence that
there is collusion or other cooperation or acting on behalf of
foreign parties.
Mr. Crane. Ma'am, do you see evidence of betrayal of public
trust? If you need help finding that, ma'am, look to your
right. There are two mothers in here that have had their
complete lives destroyed, their families destroyed.
I am going to ask, Ms. Dunn, has your public trust in
Secretary Mayorkas and the Department of Homeland Security been
broken?
Mrs. Dunn. Yes, sir.
Mr. Crane. Ms. Nobles.
Ms. Nobles. Yes.
Mr. Crane. Do you guys feel betrayed by Secretary Mayorkas
and the Department of Homeland Security? You guys know his job
is Secretary of Homeland Security? His job in his title is to
protect the homeland, Homeland Security. Do you guys feel
betrayed?
Mrs. Dunn. Yes.
Mr. Crane. I thought so.
Ms. Pearlstein, are you familiar with Article IV, section
4, of the Constitution, often known as the invasion clause?
Ms. Pearlstein. Yes, I've read the Constitution.
Mr. Crane. That is not what I asked, ma'am. I asked if you
are familiar with that Article.
Ms. Pearlstein. Yes, yes.
Mr. Crane. Thank you. I am going to read it. ``The United
States shall guarantee to every State in this union a
republican form of government,'' and here is the point, ``and
shall protect each of them against invasion.''
Ms. Nobles, Ms. Dunn, do you think that this Homeland
Security Secretary is protecting these States against invasion,
he is protecting Arizona?
Mrs. Dunn. Arizona is not protected against invasion.
Mr. Crane. Ms. Perlstein, after having me read that, do you
think that this Secretary is protecting the 50 States against
invasion?
Ms. Pearlstein. The word ``invasion'' in that clause is not
in reference to migrants who are not trying to overthrow the
government of the United States.
Mr. Crane. Oh, it is interesting that you say that, ma'am.
Very interesting that you say that.
Ma'am, Ms. Pearlstein, have you ever studied unconventional
warfare? Any idea what that term means?
Ms. Pearlstein. I've heard that term used. I'm not an
expert in unconventional warfare.
Mr. Crane. Do you have any idea what it might mean? Go
ahead, take a stab at it.
Ms. Pearlstein. I would rather hear your definition.
Mr. Crane. OK, great. Do you think, in any wild and
unprecedented strategy in the history of the world, one of our
adversaries might try and send their soldiers to infiltrate our
country using our wide-open border? Not putting them in
uniforms and having them come and present themselves in front
of our Border Patrol agents and tell our Border Patrol agents,
oh, we are just innocent immigrants. We just want a better
life. Do you think that is even possible, Ms. Pearlstein?
Ms. Pearlstein. Might anyone ever lie at the border? Yes.
Mr. Crane. OK. So it is possible that tens of thousands--
you know that is how many we are getting a day, right, ma'am?
About 10,000 a day, 10- to 15,000 a day. Are you aware of that?
Ms. Pearlstein. I'm not aware of any statistics.
Mr. Crane. OK. Well, I will fill you in then, ma'am. You
are in the Homeland Security Committee. It is about 10- to
15,000, often, sometimes 12,000 a day. That is more than a
combat division coming through our Southern Border from 160
countries, some of which are adversarial. I am going to tell
you right now, unconventional warfare has been used since the
beginning of time. These people aren't stupid. They are using
access to our country to bring in individuals who want to do
harm to it. I have been in the Classified briefs. It is a fact,
ma'am.
How many families have to be ruined? How many mothers have
to sit next to you before you come to understand this is an
invasion of our country and he is in complete dereliction of
duty of his constitutional oath to protect and defend the
United States of America? How many, ma'am? Would we need to
have 100 here today for you?
Ms. Pearlstein. Impeachment will not address the policy
problem you describe.
Mr. Crane. That is not a policy problem. That is him
completely derelicting his oath to protect and defend the
Constitution of the United States. I read you the invasion
clause. He is not doing that, ma'am. He is in complete
dereliction of doing it in accordance with the other laws that
other committee Members have read to you today.
I think it is sad. This shouldn't be a partisan issue at
all, and you know it.
I yield back.
Chairman Green. The gentlemen yields.
I now recognize Ms. Titus, the gentlelady from Nevada, for
her 5 minutes of questioning.
Ms. Titus. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would like to offer my deepest sympathy to the witnesses
for their loss.
Professor, you are the only expert in here on this topic.
Would you say one more time for the record if the Constitution
covers what Mr. Crane called dereliction of his oath or any of
the things that are being addressed here in terms of grounds
for impeachment?
Ms. Pearlstein. I don't believe the record supports grounds
for impeachment here, no.
Ms. Titus. Are you in the mainstream of other
Constitutional scholars who have taken this position, written
letters to the Post, written letters to our Chairman, been
public about this impeachment?
Ms. Pearlstein. I signed a letter that was in addition to
another dozen or more bipartisan set of Constitutional law
scholars who took the same position.
Ms. Titus. I want to emphasize that was a bipartisan list
of scholars who are very versed in this topic and who know it
better than any of us sitting up here.
So it was interesting to me that when I heard Ms. Greene
and her tirade against you, saying we are not talking about the
Constitution. She actually had the gall to say, we are not
talking about the Constitution, and she is the one who entered
the resolution that we are considering.
So if we are not talking about the Constitution, what are
we talking about? Well, we are wasting our breath talking about
history, talking about precedent, talking about previous cases,
talking about the language of the Constitution, talking about
the original intent of the Constitution, because obviously the
people on that side of the room are not talking about the
Constitution. So they are throwing out 200 years of precedent.
They are ignoring the interpretation of all these
Constitutional scholars. They are disregarding some of the
comments that have been made by Members of their own party
about the folly of this resolution and this pursuit.
So if we are not talking about the Constitution, then what
are we talking about? It is a political stunt. It is an attempt
to distract from a do-nothing Congress that has done nothing,
and even less compared to the do-nothing Congress so named by
Truman.
You know, I see another quote that I think is relevant. It
was by the Assistant Secretary of Labor Mr. Post, who they
brought up to impeach in 1920. By the way, it has only been
done one time over 100 years ago, but they tried it in 1920.
His response was, it was mental dullness at high tension. I
believe we have seen a lot of evidence today of mental dullness
at high tension with raised voices, with misinformation, with
accusations, with demeaning comments. That was mental dullness
at high tension.
So if we are not talking about the Constitution, we are
just trying to use some Constitutional terms to pretend like
stump the professor, we know more than they do. I would say
that my colleagues across the aisle are simply just trying to
put lipstick on a pig.
I yield back.
Chairman Green. The gentlelady yields.
I now recognize the Ranking Member for his closing
statement.
Mr. Thompson. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I
compliment the gentlelady from Nevada, even though you sound
like you are from Mississippi with your accent.
Let me just say that we have had about 4\1/2\, 5 hours of
hearing today on this so-called impeachment. It is unfortunate
because we have not heard any solutions being offered in the
course of this hearing. Because of that, whatever the problem
is will still be there unless we as Democrats and Republicans
come together and work on solutions.
But I would like to start by thanking our witnesses for
being here today and share their stories and expertise. Losing
a loved one to drugs or violence is devastating, and our hearts
go out to you and your families. Most of us here are family
people, and we can only give you our prayers for the
devastating loss that you have incurred.
But I want to make sure that the record is clear. Secretary
Mayorkas informed the Majority last week of his scheduling
conflict for today, and I am sorry if the Majority neglected to
share that information with our witnesses.
I would also want to make very clear that Democrats are
committed to enacting policies that will actually address these
issues. Impeaching Secretary Mayorkas would do nothing to
prevent other families from suffering similar tragedies. If
only it were that simple.
These problems are not new. They will require serious
policy making, not an impeachment vote that will do nothing but
undermine our Constitutional system. If my Republican
colleagues were serious about addressing these issues, they
would be working on legislation, collaborating with our Senate
counterparts and the White House.
Right now, Congress has a pending request from President
Biden to fund additional Border Patrol agents, additional law
enforcement personnel, and increased fentanyl detection
technology. House Republicans have refused to consider this
request. Instead of pursuing solutions to these problems, my
colleagues on the other side of the aisle are chasing an
illegitimate impeachment and using tragedy to score political
points. This entire process has been conducted in bad faith
with a predetermined outcome.
It is clear from my earlier parliamentary inquiries that
the Chairman has not established any due process or procedures
for this sham of an impeachment. The Majority has refused to
work with the Department to find a day and time to hear from
Secretary Mayorkas despite his offer to do so.
Let's not forget that my Republican colleague forced their
border bill, H.R. 2, through this committee without considering
any Democratic input, resulting in a bill full of unworkable
provisions that would create chaos on the Southwest Border.
They know as well as anyone that H.R. 2 never had a chance of
becoming law.
Senate Republicans and Democrats are working together in a
bipartisan manner and with the direct involvement of Secretary
Mayorkas to try to fix the issues raised here today. Yet
instead of joining that conversation and using the powers of
the Congress to create change, House Republicans are pursuing a
partisan impeachment effort that will achieve nothing. Perhaps
this is because a bipartisan reform bill would take away from a
Republican political talking point.
As one Republican Member told CNN earlier this month, he
has no interest in trying to pass border legislation that might
help Joe Biden's approval rating. That is really what this
impeachment sham is all about, a political game to make it seem
like the do-nothing Republican Caucus achieves something while
attacking the Biden administration. It is the American people
that are paying the price of Republican inaction.
This impeachment hearing just distracts from the important
work that DHS is doing to secure the border and enforce
immigration laws. So let me share some of that work.
From May to September 2023, DHS removed or returned at
least 360,000 noncitizens from the United States, more than any
other 5-month period in the last 10 years. From April 2022 to
September 2023, DHS arrested nearly 17,000 suspected human
smugglers and seized more than $13 million in currency. In
fiscal year 2023, DHS stopped over 43,000 pounds of fentanyl
from entering the country, resulting in over 5,600 arrests.
President Biden has requested the necessary funding, but
Republicans would rather shut down the entire Federal
Government than give President Biden another win.
Mr. Chairman, what other conclusion can the American people
draw but that House Republicans don't actually want to fix the
problem on our Southern Border? The Constitution gives Congress
broad and expansive powers to create laws and shape the
policies we want to see. It gives us strong tools to perform
oversight over the execution of those policies. Yet that is not
what we have seen here today.
Those real levers of power don't seem to be flashy enough
for my Republican colleagues. They don't want to do the hard
work of creating workable laws or collaborating or
compromising. It is far easier to demand impeachment. Instead
of engaging in a good-faith effort to improve homeland
security, House Republicans are more interested in giving
interviews on FOX News.
As Professor Pearlstein has explained today, there is no
Constitutional basis for impeaching Secretary Mayorkas. We
heard the same from Professor Bowman last week, and we heard
the same from the many other Constitutional law experts that
have written our committee. There is reason they have not
brought a Constitutional expert to testify in support of this
impeachment. There are no Constitutional basis for impeachment.
Democrats will continue to keep our focus throughout this
sham impeachment on what our obligations are under the
Constitution. As I said last week, Mr. Chairman, when your
Members are ready to work and to use the actual power given to
us by the Framers to address policy problems, I guarantee you
House Democrats will do our best to work with you. But until
then, we will continue to call out this do-nothing approach.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Green. The gentleman yields.
I would like to spend my closing statement reviewing why we
have held impeachment proceedings against Secretary Mayorkas
since my Democrat colleagues still don't seem to get it.
Secretary Mayorkas has willfully and systematically refused
to follow immigration laws written by Congress. Indeed, he has
unilaterally created policies that violate the statutory
provisions of the immigration laws related to enforcement. In
fact, most courts that have actually heard relevant arguments
and decided on the merits agree.
The problem is when the arguments on enforcement went to
the Supreme Court in the United States v. Texas, the Court
refused to decide the matter. The Court said it was not subject
to judicial review and they pointed Congress to remedy via
impeachment. The Court said if the States can't get relief from
the courts, they can get relief from Congress, who can impeach
the offending official.
Well, now Congress is the proper forum to resolve this
dispute. We now have to decide, does the legislation enacted by
the people's duly-elected representatives mean anything or can
the Secretary just do whatever he wants in direct contradiction
to the mandatory language in Federal law with impunity? I argue
that he cannot continue to not follow the law without
consequences.
This isn't a policy difference. This is a matter of
following the laws written by Congress and thus a matter of
Constitutional significance.
Today's Minority witness recognized back in 2019 that
someone could be impeached for a breach of trust. James
Madison, the primary architect of the Constitution, was elected
to the House of Representatives to serve in the First Congress.
At that time, a bill was proposed to create a Department of
Foreign Affairs, now the State Department. Concerns were raised
that if Congress created such a department, it could be filled
by people who abused the public trust. Madison worried about
it, and I quote, ``the difficulty of displacing those who are
unworthy of the public trust.''
But he pointed to a solution for that concern. He said on
the House floor, and I quote, ``If an unworthy man be continued
in office by an unworthy President, the House of
Representatives can at any time impeach him and the Senate can
remove him whether the President chooses or not.'' I don't know
about you, but I trust the interpretation of the Father of our
Constitution more than the interpretation of those desperate to
defend the indefensible for political gain.
The President has chosen to continue to keep an unworthy
man in office, and it is now the duty of the House of
Representatives to impeach Secretary Mayorkas and the Senate to
remove him from office.
The Minority witness said, We could pass laws to address
these issues, but to what end? The Secretary has already shown
he will not follow the laws passed by Congress. Secretary
Mayorkas has consistently and deliberately violated duly-
enacted laws under the Immigration and Nationality Act that
Congress has put into place to protect Americans and guard our
Nation's sovereignty. Secretary Mayorkas has refused to comply
with court orders regarding those very laws in good faith.
Additionally, Secretary Mayorkas has on numerous occasions
lied or misled the U.S. Congress and the American people
regarding the existence and scale of the border crisis that he
created. Secretary Mayorkas told the House Judiciary Committee
on April 2022 that he had operational control of the Southern
Border according to the definition laid out by the Secure Fence
Act.
By the way, that definition was passed into law by Joe
Biden, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton. Of course, Secretary
Mayorkas, his own former Border Patrol chief, testified before
this committee in March of last year that according to the
statute, DHS does not have operational control. Secretary
Mayorkas's pure dishonesty was on full display. Again, not a
policy issue.
To those claiming this impeachment hearing is against the
Constitution and against the separation of powers, I am sorry,
that is ridiculous. President Biden and Secretary Mayorkas are
the ones who have trampled on the Constitution and the
separation of powers by ignoring a coequal branch of
Government.
As far as I understand, the Constitution, the Constitution
I swore an oath to at age 17 on the plane at West Point,
Congress writes the laws and the Executive branch executes
those laws. But that is exactly, absolutely not what Secretary
Mayorkas has been doing when it comes to our country's
immigration laws. In fact, he has been spitting on those laws,
and thus the Constitution in the last 3 years. Impeachment is
our final remedy. We are left with no other choice.
This is also not a resource issue. Democrats are wrong when
they claim that the reason this border crisis is happening is
because there aren't enough resources at the border and that
Republicans have refused to fund the Border Patrol. First of
all, House Republicans have voted substantial increases in
funding for CBP above the President's requested amount. In
fact, funding the Border Patrol operations and related
Southwest Border requirements increased $2.2 billion since
fiscal year 2021.
Additionally, House Republicans in the fiscal year 2024
Homeland Security appropriations bill, where we fund the
Government, increased border security funding, again above the
President's proposed budget.
On top of this, H.R. 2, the Secure Border Act, would fund a
Border Patrol force of 22,000. Yet did any Democrat here vote
for that? No. It is the definition of hypocrisy.
Second, Secretary Mayorkas actually asked for less money
each year to fund detention, the one thing that is a deterrent
to people coming and making that trek.
Third, it won't matter how many resources we have at the
border if the policies don't change and follow the laws written
by Congress. President Biden's supplemental package would do
nothing to secure the border between ports of entry, and it
would do nothing to stop the flow of migrants to our border.
No, every cent of Biden's supplemental package would go
directly toward funding mass catch-and-release policies. That
is a nonstarter. That is what has created the crisis in the
first place.
This is clearly not an issue of funding. DHS has had less
funding under the Trump administration for border security, yet
our border was far more secure. Funding Biden's supplemental
package won't fix the crisis at the border. It will fund it.
Again, it's not a funding problem.
Secretary Mayorkas' complete disregard for the laws passed
by Congress have had a devastating impact. That is what we
learn today. Everyone knows the numbers. As one Texas sheriff
has said, and I quote, ``It's, quite frankly, a tsunami of
death that has crashed into the United States over our Southern
Border. It's killing Americans wholesale, and it's just an epic
slaughter manufactured by the cartels. If you don't secure the
border, it is going to continue.''
Slaughter is the right word to describe what fentanyl is
doing to our country, to our young people, to many of our sons
and daughters. What else do you call 100,000 overdose deaths in
2021?
A comparison was made earlier today between incarceration
rates of native citizens and immigrants. Well, whatever that
is, it misses the point that every crime committed by anyone
who is here illegally is a completely preventable crime. If you
shut the border, those lives are saved. To prevent those
crimes, you need only enforce the immigration laws on the
books, which is exactly what Secretary Mayorkas is willfully
not doing.
This hearing is titled ``Voices for the Victims: The
Heartbreaking Reality of the Mayorkas Border Crisis.'' Tammy
Noble's daughter Kayla Marie Hamilton no longer has a voice.
Josephine Dunn's daughter, Ashley Marie Dunn, no longer has a
voice. That is why we held this hearing today. It is our duty
to be the voices of those who can't speak for themselves and to
demand accountability on their behalf.
Finally, to Secretary Mayorkas, who couldn't be bothered to
show up today, Secretary Mayorkas, you have one job, follow the
laws and secure the homeland. Yet you allow criminal aliens to
walk across our border, to spit in the face of our country's
laws, and to exploit vulnerable migrants.
Secretary Mayorkas, you have one responsibility, follow the
law and secure the homeland. Yet you allow massive amounts of
fentanyl to flow across the border and poison tens of thousands
of Americans.
Secretary Mayorkas, you have one duty, to follow the law
and secure this homeland. Yet you refuse to let our Border
Patrol do its job and keep criminal aliens from coming across
the border or allow ICE to deport all criminal aliens when
caught.
You have one job, one responsibility, one duty, and you
have refused to fulfill it over and over again. You have
refused to follow the laws and to secure our homeland, yet you
shrink your responsibility. This is utterly disgraceful.
Now, I would like to make a few other points. Someone today
has made a point, I can't recall if it was a Member or the
Minority witness that if you remove the Secretary, there will
be no change because they will just put another guy in there
like that. Well, I have a duty to the people of Tennessee and
the people of America that if we have a lawless Cabinet
Secretary who refuses to obey the laws written by Congress and
who refuses court orders to cease and desist, totally
disrespecting the two other equal branches of Government in our
Constitution, I have a duty under the Constitution to remove
him. It doesn't matter if the devil I don't know is worse than
the devil I do. My duty is to remove him, and I will do my
duty.
There have been some, I think, we will say disingenuous
comments about our efforts to get Mr. Mayorkas here today. We
have tried for months and months to get him to come and testify
on the border issues. The only time he has come is when he is
Constitutionally or legally mandated to present the National
threats briefing. He came with the director. I was glad he was
here for that. He has not worked with me to be here. In fact,
today he decided to meet with some Mexican officials who come
from Mexico instead of being present at this hearing. That
ought to tell you where his priorities are.
Now, some people have suggested, of course, that we could
pass some more legislation. Well, again, I did say, what is the
use if he is not going to abide by it? But you know what? H.R.
2 sits over there on the other side of the building. Well,
actually, it is that way. I am not directionally challenged. It
is that way.
Amend it. Take the parts you don't like out of it. I think
that is the process. Then it comes back over here, we go to
conference committee, and we work it out. You don't just sit
and leave it sitting on a desk and say, you are not writing
legislation. Well, yeah, we sent it to you. The process is, you
amend it in your committee, vote on that amended version in the
Senate, and send it back to conference. So don't sit there and
say, we haven't done anything. That was months ago.
I have to address the Ranking Member's suggestion that we
would use these young women as political pawns to make a
political statement. I am offended by that. His closing remarks
could have been made at a political rally. It is despicable to
suggest that I would use the two of you as political stunts.
I am trying to show that every American is unsafe right now
with these ridiculous border policies. What happened to you
ladies and your daughters could happen to any American. The
reason they have happened is because the Secretary isn't
following the laws passed by this body, both Republicans and
Democrats. If he were a Republican, I would be saying the exact
same thing. It has nothing to do with politics for me.
I spent 24 years prepared to give my life for this country.
At times I thought I might have. No, what matters to me is that
document that I swore an oath to defend. This Secretary has
spit on it by saying that coequal branches of Government don't
matter to him. I am sorry, he has got to go.
I thank the witnesses for their valuable testimony and the
Members for their questions. The Members of the subcommittees
may have some additional questions for the witnesses, and we
would ask that the witnesses respond to those in writing.
Pursuant to committee rule VII(D) the hearing record would be
held open for 10 days.
Mr. Thompson. Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Green. Without objection--the Ranking Member is
recognized.
Mr. Thompson. You know, we have talked several times about
the rules, and we can disagree with Democrats and Republicans,
but I call your attention to House rules that you have
referenced my comments, that they were despicable. That is
against House rules.
Chairman Green. Actually, calling you despicable would be
against House rules. Calling your words despicable are not.
Mr. Thompson. Well----
Chairman Green. I can even say it is dishonest, what you
said. I can't say you are a liar. It is very clear and I have
made that distinction before, actually gaveling down comments
made by a Republican. She actually, in that case, called the
Secretary a liar. She didn't say--others have said those words
are dishonest or that is a lie. You can say that. You can't say
the individual is a liar. Her words were despicable.
Mr. Thompson. Well----
Chairman Green. I didn't say anything about you personally.
Mr. Thompson. Well, then I am clear. As long as you didn't
make Bennie Thompson----
Chairman Green. Yeah, I would never say that about an
individual sitting in this committee.
Mr. Thompson. Thank you.
Chairman Green. But I was very disappointed with your
accusation that I would use these individuals as political
pawns.
Mr. Thompson. Well, Mr. Chairman, your disappointment is
fine. But one of the tenets of who we are as a democracy is
that I have an opinion and you have an opinion, and let's
respect that. So as long as you understand that we can disagree
on the words. I was just trying to get clarification about
that. Since you say you weren't talking about me specifically,
then I am fine.
I yield back.
Chairman Green. The gentlemen yields. The committee stands
adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 1:52 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
----------
Letters From the Department of Homeland Security Submitted by Chairman
Green
January 30, 2024.
The Honorable Mark E. Green,
Chairman, Committee on Homeland Security, U.S. House of
Representatives, Washington, DC 20510.
Dear Chairman Green: On January 5, 2024, you sent a letter to me
requesting that I again appear before the House Homeland Security
Committee to provide testimony. I have testified before this Committee
seven times. I agreed to testify again and asked to work with your
staff to identify a mutually agreeable date. You did not respond to my
request, changed course, and instead invited me to submit written
testimony. Two days later, you issued a statement representing that
every member of the Committee's majority already had rendered their
decision. I respectfully submit this letter in response.
The problems with our broken and outdated immigration system are
not new. I assumed office in February 2021. Immigration cases concluded
that year reportedly had been languishing in court for an average of
1,319 days. In 2010, that average was 347 days. The Department of
Justice's Executive Office for Immigration Review reports that at the
end of Fiscal Year 2020, there were 1,261,144 cases in the immigration
court backlog. In 2017 that number was 656,383. The DHS Office of
Immigration Statistics reported that there were approximately 11.4
million undocumented individuals present in the United States in 2018.
Our immigration laws last received an overhaul in 1996. Our immigration
laws were simply not built for 21st Century migration patterns.
In 2019, prior to the onset of COVID and as country conditions in
Latin America were on the decline, the number of migrants encountered
at our Southwest Border increased almost 100 percent over the prior
year. In this post-COVID period, the challenges at our border have
again intensified as the world experiences the greatest displacement of
people since World War II and our entire hemisphere is gripped with
mass migration brought on by violence, food insecurity, severe poverty,
corruption, authoritarian regimes, and the destruction of homes and
communities by extreme weather events. These movements are facilitated
by human smuggling organizations that exploit migrants as part of a
billion-dollar criminal enterprise. The depth of suffering that
migrants are willing to endure speaks to the desperation they feel
about their prospects at home.
We need a legislative solution and only Congress can provide it. I
have been privileged to join a bipartisan group of United States
Senators these past several months to provide technical and operational
expertise in support of their efforts to strengthen our country's
border security. These efforts would yield significant new enforcement
tools and make a substantial difference at our border.
Our law enforcement personnel need additional resources to execute
our border security and enforcement strategy, which is why the
administration requested supplemental funding in August and then again
in October 2023. That request included the hiring of an additional
1,300 Border Patrol Agents, 1,000 law enforcement officers and the
purchase and deployment of over 100 cutting-edge Non-Intrusive
Inspection (NII) systems to prevent cartels from moving fentanyl into
the country, and 1,600 additional asylum officers to rapidly adjudicate
claims for asylum and facilitate timely decisions so that those who are
ineligible can be quickly removed and those with valid claims can
receive prompt resolution.
Instead, you claim that we have failed to enforce our immigration
laws. That is false. We have provided Congress and your Committee hours
of testimony, thousands of documents, hundreds of briefings, and much
more information that demonstrates quite clearly how we are enforcing
the law. The extensive material we have provided informed you that, for
example:
This Administration has removed, returned, or expelled more
migrants in 3 years than the prior Administration did in 4
years.
Since May 12, 2023, DHS has removed or returned more than
500,000 individuals, the vast majority of whom crossed the
Southwest Border.
Total removals and returns since mid-May 2023 exceed
removals and returns in every full fiscal year since 2015.
Daily removals and returns are nearly double what they were
compared to the pre-pandemic average from 2014 to 2019. The
majority of individuals encountered at the Southwest Border
throughout this Administration have been removed, returned, or
expelled.
We have significantly increased the number of removal
flights within the Western Hemisphere since the end of Title
42, sending over 20 flights per week of individuals who have
been rapidly processed and determined to be removable. We
continue to repatriate individuals to more than 150 countries.
Before 2013, the majority of individuals attempting to cross
the border entered without being caught. Under this
Administration, the estimated annual apprehension rate has
averaged 78 percent, the same average rate of apprehension as
in the prior Administration.
We developed and implemented a regulation that created a
presumption of ineligibility for asylum if an individual who
crossed the Southwest Border without authorization traveled
through another country and failed to meet defined criteria,
including the use of lawful pathways made available to them.
We have been executing an unprecedented and high-impact
campaign to disrupt and dismantle the smuggling organizations.
More than 14,000 smugglers throughout the region have been
arrested and thousands have been prosecuted under Federal law.
We have worked with Mexico to conduct mirrored patrols along
the Southwest Border, and we have worked with Mexico and other
countries to increase interdictions along the migratory routes,
increase repatriation flights, and execute the removal of
third-country nationals.
Last year we secured funding to hire 300 more Border Patrol
Agents, the first increase in more than a decade. Last year I
was honored to promote Jason Owens, a career Border Patrol
Agent, as the new Chief of the United States Border Patrol.
Undoubtedly, we have policy disagreements on the historically
divisive issue of immigration. That has been the case between
Administrations and Members of Congress for much longer than the past
38 years since the last overhaul of our immigration system. I think it
is unconscionable to separate children from their parents as a tool of
deterrence. I believe that law enforcement at the border can be tough
and humane. It is our responsibility to the American people to work
through our differences and try to reach solutions together. The
bipartisan group of United States Senators is currently doing just
that.
The trafficking and use of illegal drugs are also not new problems
for our country. We have been fighting the war against drugs for
decades. When I was working to convict drug dealers and traffickers as
a Federal prosecutor throughout the 1990's--including the prosecution
of the largest cocaine money laundering operation in the country at the
time--I saw up close the loss and damage wreaked by black tar heroin,
methamphetamine, crack cocaine, and other illegal drugs. I was
dedicated then, as I am now, to defeating this scourge upon our
country.
What I saw for 12 years as a Federal prosecutor does not compare to
what our country has experienced and what we have been fighting for
more than the past 7 years. The addictiveness and fatality of synthetic
opioids have cost hundreds of thousands of lives and have ravaged
communities. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
reports that overdose deaths involving synthetic opioids--primarily
fentanyl--began to climb in 2014 and have accelerated since.
Provisional data from the CDC reflects 28,659 overdose deaths involving
synthetic opioids in 2017, escalating to 56,894 in 2020; 71,143 in
2021; and 74,789 in 2022. Every death from drug overdoses and poisoning
is a tragedy.
The battle against fentanyl presents unique challenges because
fentanyl is cheap to make, easily concealed, and made with precursor
chemicals and materials that have legal uses. We have intensified our
efforts against the cartels and developed new strategies in response.
In Fiscal Year 2023 our targeted operations seized more than 43,000
pounds of fentanyl, 3,600 pill presses, and $16 million in currency. We
work closely with partners in other countries.
Homeland Security Investigations has established 16 Transnational
Criminal Investigative Units (TCIUs) that are successfully supporting
investigations and prosecutions abroad. In Fiscal Year 2023, efforts by
the Mexico TCIU resulted in more than 59 criminal arrests and the
seizure of 64,138 pounds of precursor chemicals.
To better detect smuggling, we are dramatically expanding the use
of NII technology at ports of entry, through which more than 90 percent
of fentanyl is smuggled into the United States. We are adding new
state-of-the-art NII systems to complement those currently in use
across Southwest Border ports of entry, with 72 construction projects
underway at 15 ports.
Our strategy has evolved to target not just fentanyl, but also the
tools and materials the transnational criminal organizations use to
make it. We are interdicting and seizing precursor chemicals, pill
press machines, die molds, and pill press parts used in the
manufacturing process. We are targeting Chinese pill press and
precursor supply chains, Mexican pill press brokers, the Mexican
transnational criminal organizations and the domestic traffickers who
are producing and moving fentanyl, and the money launderers who help
facilitate this illicit trade. Our efforts over the past year have
resulted in the seizure of nearly 1 million pounds of fentanyl and
methamphetamine precursor chemicals.
Our Department is helping partners in the Western Hemisphere and
Asia build their own capacity to combat the smuggling of illicit
fentanyl. We recently established a working group for on-going
communication and law enforcement coordination with the People's
Republic of China to increase cooperation and information sharing.
We are innovating with the responsible use of artificial
intelligence at our ports of entry. This year alone, machine learning
models that help CBP Officers determine which suspicious vehicles and
passengers to refer to secondary screening have led to 240 seizures,
which included thousands of pounds of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine,
and fentanyl. More details about our efforts to combat fentanyl can be
found in this recent DHS fact sheet.
There is much more to do in the fight against fentanyl and other
synthetic opioids. We must reduce both supply and demand. To accomplish
this, we must work together to tackle what we all agree is a horrific
problem that poses grave danger to our citizens, our communities, and
our Nation.
The Chairman and Members of the Committee's majority have harshly
criticized the Department's responsiveness to oversight. The
allegations are baseless and inaccurate.
I take very seriously my responsibility to cooperate in good faith
with Congress's oversight function. I have devoted significant
Departmental resources and personal time to this effort. I have
testified publicly in 27 congressional hearings since I became DHS
Secretary. Twelve of those hearings were in the House of
Representatives, including seven before the House Homeland Security
Committee. I have testified more than any other member of the Cabinet.
In every House hearing, I was asked and I answered many questions
about immigration and the border. In all but one of those hearings, I
was asked and I answered questions about our counter-fentanyl work. The
Department has produced thousands of pages of documents, provided
countless briefings, and sent dozens of witnesses to appear in hearings
and transcribed interviews. We have produced more than 13,000 pages of
documents and data in response to this Committee's requests alone.
Further information evidencing the Department's response to
congressional oversight is attached.
Whatever proceedings you initiate, however baseless, my
responsiveness to oversight requests will not waiver. The Department
has been committed to responding and will continue to respond in good
faith to congressional oversight requests.
I will defer a discussion of the Constitutionality of your current
effort to the many respected scholars and experts across the political
spectrum who already have opined that it is contrary to law. What I
will not defer to others is a response to the politically motivated
accusations and personal attacks you have made against me.
I have been privileged to serve our country for most of my
professional life. I have adhered scrupulously and fervently to the
Oath of Office I have taken six times in my public service career.
My reverence for law enforcement was instilled in me by my parents,
who brought me to this country to escape the Communist takeover of Cuba
and allow me the freedoms and opportunity that our democracy provides.
My parents experienced such loss at the fisted hands of
authoritarianism that the American law enforcement officer stood as a
tangible symbol of safety and the rule of law in our new home. When I
was a boy, my mother would have me jump out of the back seat of our
family's station wagon, approach a police officer in uniform, extend my
hand, and say thank you.
It was because of everything America meant and gave to my family
that I was motivated to enter public service. It was because of my
admiration and respect for the men and women who wore a badge that I
wanted to work with them to enforce our country's laws. In 1989, I was
privileged to take the Oath of Office and be sworn-in as an Assistant
United States Attorney for the Central District of California.
For the next nearly 9 years, I worked with Federal, State, and
local law enforcement agents and officers in the investigation and
prosecution of Federal crimes. We seized and forfeited property
purchased with proceeds of drug deals, and successfully prosecuted bank
robbers; counterfeiters; members of the MS-13, 18th Street, Crips,
Bloods, and other street gangs; cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, and
marijuana traffickers; migrant smugglers; illegal border crossers (most
often criminals with multiple felonies, deportations, and reentries);
fraudulent document manufacturers; illegal telemarketers; and many
others. In 1996 I became the Chief of our General Crimes Section, where
I trained all new Assistant United States Attorneys in the
investigation and prosecution of Federal criminal cases and how to try
them before a jury. I have represented the United States in a Federal
courtroom in hundreds of hard-fought criminal cases.
In 1998 I was confirmed to serve as the United States Attorney for
the Central District of California. I was the first Federal prosecutor
in our office's history to be promoted from within to the top
leadership position. To have my father at my side as I took the Oath to
assume that role was one of the proudest moments of my life.
Over the next 3 years, I prosecuted cases of national and
international significance, enforcing a wide breadth of criminal
statutes. I pursued the death penalty against members of the Mexican
mafia, brought RICO charges against a Los Angeles street gang, and
successfully prosecuted Federal cases of money laundering, public
corruption, human trafficking, foreign corrupt practices, drug
trafficking, securities fraud, violent crime, immigration fraud,
organized crime, and much more. A partial list of the recognition I
received for my work as an Assistant United States Attorney and as the
United States Attorney is attached.
I returned to public service in August 2009, upon my confirmation
as the Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. I vividly
remember taking the Oath and getting to work on a top-to-bottom review
of the agency and leading a subsequent realignment to best serve its
mission. As a result of that review, I created a new Directorate within
the agency--the Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate--to
prioritize and more effectively fulfill the fundamental
responsibilities of safeguarding our homeland and protecting the
integrity of our legal immigration system.
I served as the Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration
Services for 4 years, until I was nominated and confirmed by the U.S.
Senate to serve as the Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security. My
responsibilities as the Deputy Secretary covered the entire expanse of
the Department's work, from going after the drug cartels, building the
Department's cybersecurity capabilities, combating illegal immigration,
and strengthening the Department's partnerships with State and local
law enforcement, to negotiating security agreements with foreign
countries, implementing new trade and travel protocols, and advancing
our interests in the Arctic.
For my service as the Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security, I was
awarded the Distinguished Service Award, the Department's highest
civilian honor; the Distinguished Public Service Award, the United
States Coast Guard's highest civilian honor; and recognition and awards
from law enforcement agencies across the Department and the Federal
Government.
On February 2, 2021, I took the Oath for the sixth time in my
public service career and was sworn-in as the Secretary of Homeland
Security. I am now in my 22nd year of service to our country. I no
longer introduce and argue evidence in a Federal courtroom to persuade
the jury to convict a dangerous criminal, but the mission to which I
remain devoted is the same: to safeguard the American people.
I assure you that your false accusations do not rattle me and do
not divert me from the law enforcement and broader public service
mission to which I have devoted most of my career and to which I remain
devoted. The privilege of working alongside the 260,000 men and women
who serve in the Department of Homeland Security--the privilege of
working with incredibly talented and dedicated people on behalf of the
United States of America--is the greatest thing one can do.
Sincerely,
Alejandro N. Mayorkas
Secretary.
______
January 29, 2024.
The Honorable Mark E. Green,
Chairman, Committee on Homeland Security, U.S. House of
Representatives, Washington, DC 20510.
Dear Chairman Green: Thank you for your January 17, 2024, letter
regarding oversight requests to the Department of Homeland Security
(DHS or the Department) by the Committee on Homeland Security. I am
responding on behalf of the Department.
DHS works in good faith to provide the Committee with the
information it needs to conduct its legitimate oversight and
legislative objectives. This is accomplished through many forms of
communication. For example, since the start of the Biden
administration, the Department has provided 90 witnesses for 56
Committee hearings, including 27 appearances by the Secretary, more
than any other member of the President's Cabinet. The Department has
also produced more than 25,000 pages of documents in response to over
1,400 congressional letters, including more than 13,000 pages to this
Committee, during this Congress alone. Additionally, the Department has
provided nearly 20 employees for transcribed interviews. It has done so
while answering to more than 70 committees and subcommittees of
jurisdiction, including this Committee.
The Department strives to respond to oversight requests, but it is
constrained by the content of the requests themselves, as well as
limited internal resources. For example, the Committee makes many
requests for classified information, records that require interagency
review, and datasets drawing information from multiple DHS offices and
agencies. DHS must respond with information that is accurate and with
appropriate security and privacy safeguards. This requires careful
prioritization of limited departmental resources. As such, in several
instances, the Department has asked the Committee to prioritize
requests and narrow their scope in ways that would more accurately
target the information sought. That is exactly the sort of
accommodation process envisioned by our Constitution and the courts
that interpret it.\1\ Rather than engaging in the accommodations
process, the Committee has chosen to issue new requests with a pace,
volume, and deadlines it knows are not reasonable. Moreover, the
Committee continues to knowingly reiterate requests that DHS is unable
to fulfill, such as requests for documents belonging to other agencies,
requests for which there are no responsive records, and those which the
Department is prohibited by law or policy from providing due to ongoing
investigations. DHS has consistently identified these requests and
complied with them to the extent permissible by any reasonable
standard.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ See United States v. American Tel. Tel. Co., 567 F.2d 121 (D.C.
Cir. 1977) (``Negotiation between the two branches should thus be
viewed as a dynamic process affirmatively furthering the constitutional
scheme.''); Trump v. Mazars U.S., LLP, 140 S. Ct. 2019, 207 L. Ed. 2d
951 (2020) (Negotiations between the branches should ensure that a
request is ``no broader than reasonably necessary to support Congress's
legislative objective.'')
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Despite these obstacles, DHS has provided substantial cooperation
and accommodation with the Committee, including:
In response to a Committee letter dated January 30, 2023,
the Department provided a narrative response on June 15, 2023,
and produced two sets of documents on March 17 and June 15,
2023, totaling more than 600 pages.
In response to a Committee letter dated January 31, 2023,
the Department responded with a letter on March 1, 2023, in
which it committed to making rolling productions. The
Department has lived up to that commitment making productions
on March 1, April 4, August 30, and November 20, 2023, totaling
more than 2,100 pages of responsive documents.
In response to a Committee letter dated May 10, 2023, the
United States Coast Guard provided a classified briefing on
October 1, 2023. In addition to that briefing, on October 31,
2023, the Department provided a written response accompanied by
more than 1,000 pages of responsive documents.
In response to a Committee letter dated May 10, 2023, the
Department produced more than 850 pages of responsive records
with a written response on November 1, 2023.
In response to a Committee request dated May 19, 2023, the
Department has been working closely with the Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI), which owns relevant information, to
provide responses. On September 11, 2023, the Department
submitted a written response that included an offer for a
classified briefing. The Department has since provided multiple
opportunities in a classified setting for the review of 750
pages of responsive records and continues to work with its
interagency partners to produce additional records for the
Committee's review.
In response to a Committee request dated June 15, 2023, in
addition to a written response dated October 5, 2023, the
Department produced two sets of responsive documents on October
5 and December 20, 2023, totaling more than 900 pages.
In response to a Committee letter dated September 27, 2023,
the Department responded on November 3, 2023, with a letter
clarifying the Department's role and indicating that the
questions posed would be best answered by other Federal
agencies.
In response to a Committee letter dated December 11, 2023,
on December 15, 2023, the Department offered to answer the
Committee's questions in a briefing. Committee staff postponed
initial plans for this briefing and have since been
unresponsive to multiple attempts to reschedule.
The Department continues to make rolling productions responsive to
the Committee's two subpoenas. To date, the Department has produced
more than 6,000 pages of records in response to those requests, and the
Department continues to search for and review additional records.
This is by no means intended to be an exhaustive line-by-line
response to the Committee's letter. It is provided, however, to
demonstrate the Department's good faith compliance with oversight
requests from the Committee. Furthermore, your letter erroneously
includes several requests to which you allege you have not received a
response, when in fact material has already been produced. The
Department will gladly direct your staff to those productions at a time
that is convenient for them.
The Department continues to identify and review records responsive
to the Committee's requests and to prioritize based on compulsory
processes, conversations with Committee staff, and dates of requests.
DHS staff remains willing and available to work with Committee staff on
these priorities, with the recognition that staff capacity may have to
be reallocated from other Committee requests, and that responses are
subject to the limits described above.
Thank you again for your letter. Should you wish to discuss this or
any homeland security issue, please contact the DHS Office of
Legislative Affairs, (202) 447-5890.
Zephranie Buetow,
Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs.
partial list of recognition as assistant united states attornev and
united states attorney
Special Achievement Award United States Department of Justice,
September 1991
Given by United States Attorney General William Barr for
sustained superior performance of duty as an Assistant United
States Attorney
Special Commendation, U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency
Recognition of outstanding prosecution work
Special Commendation, Federal Bureau of Investigation, February 1997
Given by Director Louis J. Freeh for outstanding prosecution
work in support of the FBI
Outstanding Service Award, Federal Bureau of Investigation
Recognition of outstanding contribution and dedication in
the prosecution of the cocaine money laundering case United
States v. Wanis Koyomejian et al.
Recognition for Outstanding Prosecution Work, United States Customs
Service, U.S. Department of Treasury, April 2001
Recognition for Outstanding Prosecution Work United States Secret
Service, U.S. Department of Treasury, April 2001
Recognition for Outstanding Prosecution Work Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco
& Firearms, April 2001
Chief Postal Inspector's Award, June 2001
Highest award bestowed by the United States Postal
Inspector. Given in recognition of the prosecution of Buford O.
Furrow, Jr. (sentenced to life in prison without the
possibility of parole for the murder of a postal employee and
the shooting rampage at a Jewish community center).
______
Closing Statement of Ranking Member Bennie G. Thompson
January 18, 2024
I'd like to start by thanking all of the witnesses for being here
today to share their stories and expertise. Losing a loved one to drugs
or violence is devastating, and our hearts go out to you and your
families.
I also want to make sure that the record is clear--Secretary
Mayorkas informed the Majority last week of his scheduling conflict for
today, and I am sorry if the Majority neglected to share that
information with the witnesses.
I also want to make very clear that Democrats are committed to
enacting policies that will actually address these issues.
Impeaching Secretary Mayorkas will do nothing to prevent other
families from suffering similar tragedies. If only it were that simple.
These problems are not new. They will require serious policy
making, not an impeachment vote will do nothing but undermine our
Constitutional system.
If my Republican colleagues were serious about addressing these
issues, they would be working on legislation, collaborating with our
Senate counterparts and the White House.
Right now, Congress has a pending request from President Biden to
fund additional Border Patrol agents, additional law enforcement
personnel, and increased fentanyl detection technology. House
Republicans have refused to consider this request.
Instead of pursuing solutions to these problems, my colleagues on
the other side of the aisle are chasing an illegitimate impeachment and
using tragedy to score political points.
This entire process has been conducted in bad faith with a
predetermined outcome.
It is clear from my earlier parliamentary inquiries that the
Chairman has not established any due process or procedure for this sham
of an impeachment.
And the Majority has refused to work with the Department to find a
day and time to hear from Secretary Mayorkas, despite his offer to do
so.
Let's not forget that my Republican colleagues forced their border
bill, H.R. 2, through this committee without considering any Democratic
input, resulting in a bill full of unworkable provisions that would
create chaos on the Southwest Border. They know as well as anyone that
H.R. 2 never had a chance of becoming law.
Senate Republicans and Democrats are working together, in a
bipartisan manner and with the direct involvement of Secretary
Mayorkas, to try to fix the issues raised here today. Yet instead of
joining that conversation and using the powers of the Congress to
create change, House Republicans are pursuing a partisan impeachment
effort that will achieve nothing.
Perhaps this is because a bipartisan reform bill would take away a
Republican political talking point. As one Republican Member told CNN
earlier this month, he has no interest in trying to pass border
legislation that might ``help Joe Biden's approval rating.''
And that's really what this impeachment sham is all about. A
political game to make it seem like the do-nothing Republican caucus
achieved something while attacking the Biden administration.
It's the American people that are paying the price of Republican
inaction. This impeachment hearing just distracts from the important
work that DHS is doing to secure the border and enforce immigration
laws, so let me share some of that work.
From May to September 2023, DHS removed or returned at least
360,000 noncitizens from the United States, more than any other
5-month period in the last 10 years.
From April 2022 to September 2023, DHS arrested nearly
17,000 suspected human smugglers and seized nearly $13 million
in currency.
And in fiscal year 2023 DHS stopped over 43,000 pounds of
fentanyl from entering the country, resulting in over 5,600
arrests.
President Biden has requested the necessary funding, but
Republicans would rather shut down the entire Federal Government than
give President Biden another win.
Mr. Chairman, what other conclusion can the American people draw
but that House Republicans don't actually want to fix the problems on
our Southern Border?
The Constitution gives Congress broad and expansive powers to
create laws and shape the policies we want to see. It gives us strong
tools to perform oversight over the execution of those policies.
Yet that's not what we're seeing here today. Those real levers of
power don't seem to be flashy enough for my Republican colleagues. They
don't want to do the hard work of creating workable laws--of
collaborating and compromising.
It's far easier to demand impeachment. Instead of engaging in a
good-faith effort to improve homeland security, House Republicans are
more interested in giving interviews to FOX News.
As Professor Pearlstein has explained today, there is no
Constitutional basis for impeaching Secretary Mayorkas.
We heard the same from Professor Bowman last week, and we've heard
the same from the many other Constitutional law experts that have
written our committee.
There is a reason they have not brought a Constitutional expert to
testify in support of this impeachment--there is no Constitutional
basis for impeachment.
Democrats will continue to keep our focus throughout this sham
impeachment on what our obligations are under the Constitution.
As I said last week, Mr. Chairman, when your Members are ready to
get to work and to use the actual powers given to us by the Framers to
address policy problems, I guarantee you House Democrats will do our
best to work with you.
But until then we will continue to call out this do-nothing
approach.
[all]