[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 60 (Tuesday, April 9, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2655-S2656]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                          Mayorkas Impeachment

  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, tomorrow afternoon, the House of 
Representatives will transmit Articles of Impeachment against Homeland 
Security Secretary Mayorkas to the U.S. Senate. And the Democrat 
leader? Well, by all accounts, the Democrat leader will move to sweep 
the articles and the border security crisis that they represent

[[Page S2656]]

under the rug by immediately dismissing the charges. It is not 
particularly surprising given Democrats' history of minimizing the 
crisis at our southern border, but it is disappointing nonetheless.
  The House of Representatives has put forward serious charges, along 
with evidence to support those charges, and it is not too much to ask 
that the Senate take this matter seriously and explore these charges 
before dismissing them.
  In a courtroom, a case is not dismissed without the court taking the 
time to examine the facts, and the Senate, sitting as a Court of 
Impeachment, should be no different. The Senate should have a full 
trial and take the time to examine whether Secretary Mayorkas's actions 
warrant a conviction. Then the Senate should be able to vote guilty or 
not guilty.
  One thing is absolutely clear, and that is that Secretary Mayorkas 
and President Biden have presided over the worst border crisis on 
record. We have had 3 successive years of recordbreaking illegal 
immigration under President Biden. Now, let that just sink in for a 
minute. We have had 3 successive years of recordbreaking illegal 
immigration under President Biden. Fiscal year 2021 saw a 
recordbreaking 1,734,686 migrant encounters at our southern border. 
Then fiscal year 2022 broke that record, and then fiscal year 2023 
broke that record. If the current trajectory continues, it is likely 
that fiscal year 2024 will break the record yet again.
  While there are always various factors that affect the flow of 
migration, there is a reason that President Biden and Secretary 
Mayorkas have presided over 3 successive years of recordbreaking 
illegal immigration, and that reason is the weak border security 
policies of the Biden administration.
  From the day he took office, when he rescinded the declaration of a 
national emergency at our southern border, President Biden made it 
clear that border security was at the bottom of his priority list. Over 
the 3 years since, he and Secretary Mayorkas have turned our southern 
border into a magnet for illegal migration, from repealing effective 
border security policies from the Trump administration to abusing our 
asylum and parole systems, which are now providing temporary amnesty to 
hundreds of thousands of individuals here illegally.
  Under U.S. immigration law, parole, which is the temporary release 
into the country of an individual for an extenuating reason, is meant 
to be used on a case-by-case basis only for ``significant public 
benefit,'' like appearing as a witness in a trial, or ``urgent 
humanitarian reasons,'' like a medical emergency. But under Secretary 
Mayorkas, the Biden administration has created a system of mass parole, 
with groups being approved en masse for release into the country. In 
fiscal year 2023, the Biden administration paroled 22 times--22 times--
as many individuals per month from southwest border ports of entry as 
did the Trump administration.
  Meanwhile, on the asylum front, President Biden's decision to 
implement a mobile app, CBP One, for filing asylum claims has helped 
result in hundreds of thousands of individuals taking up residence in 
our country, often for years, many of whom are unlikely ever to be 
approved for asylum.
  Needless to say, the number of individuals flooding across our 
southern border under President Biden and Senator Mayorkas is a 
logistical nightmare. The Border Patrol is stretched thin, and U.S. 
cities at the border and across the country are being overwhelmed by 
the number of migrants. But even more than that--even more than that--
this is a national security crisis.
  Our country cannot be secure while we have 2\1/2\ million individuals 
a year pouring across our southern border. And that is not even 
counting the hundreds of thousands of known ``got-aways''--individuals 
the Border Patrol saw but were unable to apprehend--the number of 
which, the Chief of the Border Patrol recently noted, is keeping him up 
at night.
  Even some Democrat Senators here in the Senate have acknowledged that 
the crisis at our southern border has to be addressed, so I don't think 
it is too much to ask that we look seriously at the charges the House 
has brought against one of the chief architects of the Biden 
administration's lax border security regime, an individual so 
disconnected from the reality of the situation we face that he has 
repeatedly publicly asserted that the border is secure in the face of 
overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
  Unfortunately, I suspect the Democrat leader will continue his plan 
to sweep these charges under the rug. And with the President and 
Senator Mayorkas's demonstrated unwillingness to use the power of their 
offices to stem the flow of illegal migration, year four of the Biden-
Mayorkas crisis will continue.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Padilla). The Senator from Mississippi.