[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 18 (Wednesday, January 31, 2024)]
[House]
[Pages H320-H321]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




      ARTICLES OF IMPEACHMENT AGAINST SECRETARY ALEJANDRO MAYORKAS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. Bentz) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BENTZ. Mr. Speaker, this morning the House Committee on Homeland 
Security passed two Articles of Impeachment accusing Secretary 
Alejandro Mayorkas of high crimes and misdemeanors.
  I have thought, and with the information developed by the committee, 
have come to believe that Secretary Mayorkas should be impeached for 
his clear violation of the law, and when this matter comes to the 
floor, I intend to vote in favor of his impeachment.
  That said, today I wish to remark upon the importance and merit, when 
it comes to most things, and certainly impeachment, of the value of 
carefully following proper process.
  Impeachment is a constitutional function of the highest order, and 
when considering its use, we must transcend passions and politics. If 
impeachment is to remain what the Founders intended, and that is 
something greater than a political tool deployed whenever the mood 
suits, then it must be used as originally designed: as a means of 
holding people who have political power accountable when they violate 
the high crimes and misdemeanors standard.
  If we fail to follow best practices in this effort, then impeachment 
will soon

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become little more than a sad and ineffective means of expressing 
dissatisfaction with the policies of the opposing party.
  It has correctly been said that the object of the House in an 
impeachment proceeding is to create a full record upon which a verdict 
in the Senate can be fairly and efficiently adjudged.
  Thanks to Chairman Mark Green's excellent work, this is exactly what 
has happened. Over the past 10 months, including important recent 
evidentiary hearings, Chairman Mark Green's Homeland Security 
Committee, using an open and deliberative process, has carefully 
created a full record reflecting Secretary Mayorkas' violation of 
statutory and constitutional standards upon which the Senate can and 
should deliberate.
  That process has not only developed the facts and evidence of 
breaches of our laws, it has also allowed full debate and full 
disclosure to our Nation of what our law requires and the Secretary's 
intentional circumvention of those laws.
  Had we not completed this investigative process, we would have not 
only weakened the impeachment remedy, but we would have also made it 
much easier for the Senate to ignore the excellent work the committee 
has now done.
  Just a few words about Article I of the Homeland Security Committee's 
impeachment resolution:
  United States Code 8 U.S.C. 1226(c) explicitly states that illegal 
aliens who have a criminal conviction shall be detained. Yet Secretary 
Mayorkas literally ordered DHS employees to not enforce this law. This 
is not mere neglect, nor can this violation be excused as a result of 
not having space available in the detention facilities. There were and 
are spaces available, and if there were not, the Secretary could and 
should have asked for increased funding in the DHS budget.
  In fact, when Secretary Mayorkas appeared before the Judiciary 
Committee, on which I sit, I asked why he had not requested more money 
for his department's budget instead of less.
  Because we Republicans followed regular order and completed the 
hearing process, we have met and exceeded the threshold of evidence 
necessary to justify a trial. The record established by Chairman Mark 
Green's Homeland Security Committee contains adequate evidence of the 
Secretary's breach of our laws, and this constitutes more than an 
adequate foundation for his impeachment.
  Thus, when the Senate receives this impeachment resolution, it will 
have the evidence needed to render a fair and efficient verdict, and 
that verdict should be that the Secretary is guilty of breaking our 
Nation's laws and should be convicted and removed from office.

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