Former Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Michael Chertoff criticized the GOP’s intentions to impeach Alejandro Mayorkas, calling it a “political stunt.”
During an interview on Sunday on CBS‘ Face the Nation, host Margaret Brennan asked Chertoff about what could happen if a Republican-led Congress tries to impeach Mayorkas, the current DHS secretary.
“Well, it would be a very sad day if—in search of what is, again, a political stunt, you know, threatening to impeach Secretary Mayorkas,” Chertoff, a Republican who served under former President George W. Bush said, adding that efforts should be directed towards creating resources and finding ways to deal with immigration-related issues.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican, on Tuesday called for Mayorkas to resign over the way he is handling the U.S.-Mexico border and threatened that the GOP would consider impeaching him next year if he doesn’t resign.
Former Dept. of Homeland Security Secretaries Jeh Johnson and Michael Chertoff both tell @margbrennan an attempt by a Republican-led House to impeach current DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas would be a “stunt,” rather than focusing on solutions to deal with the border crisis. pic.twitter.com/VkYl1zUofV
— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) November 27, 2022
McCarthy referenced some of the issues that the GOP are concerned about, including the Biden administration’s decision to end the Trump-era “Remain in Mexico” policy, which limited immigration at the southern border and efforts to end Title 42, a COVID-19 policy that limited the entrance of asylum-seekers to curb the spread of the disease.
“His actions have produced the greatest wave of illegal immigration in recorded history. Our country may never recover from Secretary Mayorkas’ dereliction of duty,” McCarthy said during a press conference in El Paso, Texas.
He continued: “This is why today I am calling on the secretary to resign. He cannot and must not remain in that position. If Secretary Mayorkas does not resign, House Republicans will investigate every order, every action and every failure, [and] will determine whether we can begin impeachment inquiry.”
In response to McCarthy’s threat, a DHS spokesperson said last Wednesday, according to NBC News, that “members of Congress can do better than point the finger at someone else; they should come to the table and work on solutions for our broken system and outdated laws, which have not been overhauled in over 40 years.”
Brennan on Sunday also asked former DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson, a Democrat who served during the Barack Obama administration, to weigh in with his thoughts about the possibility of the GOP impeaching Mayorkas.
“What people need to know, and Michael and I know this, the secretary of Homeland Security is focused on border security, maritime security, aviation security, cyber security, the Coast Guard, the Secret Service and a host of other things. We can’t have a secretary who’s distracted by a stunt in Congress at attempt at impeachment,” Johnson said.
House Republicans recently voted 188-31 by secret ballot to nominate McCarthy for House speaker as the GOP narrowly took control of the House in this year’s midterm elections.
Mayorkas previously faced impeachment threats over what critics called a misleading response to images that some believed showed Border Patrol agents whipping Haitian migrants amid an influx of people trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border last September.
Images and footage that circulated online at the time appeared to show agents using their horse reins against the migrants, a move that sparked outrage among Democrats and Biden administration officials.
Mayorkas at the time condemned the alleged incident at a press briefing and said that those “images painfully conjured up the worst elements of our nation’s ongoing battle against systemic racism.” However, the photographer who captured the photos said that he and his colleagues didn’t see agents using whips on any migrants. Mayorkas was reportedly told about the update by a DHS public affairs official before he made those comments at the briefing.
NEW: Email reveals DHS Secretary Mayorkas was alerted by DHS’ top public affairs official that the “whipping” narrative behind horseback BP photos wasn’t true, but at a WH press conference 2.5 hours later, he didn’t refute that narrative, instead calling the images “horrifying”. pic.twitter.com/Qyfy2NBkNo
— Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) October 12, 2022
Some Republicans then expressed their anger about Mayorkas’ reportedly misleading response, with some calling for his impeachment.
Still, Chertoff on Sunday said that impeaching Mayorkas “would be basically putting form over substance to go through a big performance on impeachment that’s never going anywhere, rather than actually working with the administration to solve the problem.”
In a brief statement last Tuesday, Tommy Pigott, the Republican National Committee (RNC) Rapid Response director, accused the Biden administration of lying about securing the U.S.-Mexico border.
“With Republicans in charge, we’ll finally have a House majority committed to securing the border,” Pigott said on the committee’s website. “We’ll soon have a House Republican majority that will hold Biden accountable. Democrats want you to believe the border is ‘secure.’ They’re lying.”
Newsweek reached out to the RNC for comment.
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