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(FreedomWire.org) – Department of Homeland Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas looked stunned on Wednesday after Republican Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy surprised him during a hearing.

Mayorkas was testifying before the Senate Appropriations Committee when mid-testimony Sen. Kennedy patted him on the right shoulder, walked behind him and went in for a handshake.

Mayorkas immediately jumped at the first pat on the back before being overcome with confusion as he searched around to see who laid a hand on him. Mayorkas then cracked a smile after he realized it was Kennedy.

Kennedy later grilled Mayorkas, asking him to define an assault weapon after Mayorkas called to ban them.

“You said you will oppose all assault weapons. But you don’t know what they are. Can you give me an example?” Kennedy stated.

“I think I gave you an example yesterday.” Mayorkas replied.

On Tuesday, Mayorkas was grilled  from Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee over the Biden administration’s border crisis, Kennedy shared his takeaways.

Kennedy pointed out, “Either Secretary Mayorkas believes in completely open borders or he is not qualified to manage a Chuck E. Cheese.”

(FreedomWire.org) – Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) completely destroyed Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas during a hearing on Tuesday over the Biden administration’s ongoing crisis on the U.S. southern border.

Cruz didn’t go easy on Mayorkas after getting him to admit that the U.S. saw its lowest level of encounters on the southern border in 2020.

“Let’s look at CBP encounters … it drops to the lowest level. Then boom, what happens? You show up!” Cruz said. “And that red line is you! That red line is Joe Biden! And you’re claiming nothing happened, oh gosh, this was here before us. No! You made the decision to allow this!”

Cruz also got Mayorkas to admit that he had no idea how many migrants have died trying to get through the southern border in 2022.

“Of course you don’t! I know how many died, 853!” Cruz fired back. “You go back to 1998, you see it’s consistently between 300 to 400… Suddenly 2021. What happens? You get in office!”

Cruz later enraged Mayorkas after demanding that Mayorkas resign from his job over how poorly the Biden administration has handled the crisis.

“Mr. Secretary, I want to say to you right now, your behavior is disgraceful. And the deaths, the children assaulted, the children raped, they are at your feet,” Cruz said. “And if you had integrity, you would resign.”

“The men and women of the Border Patrol, they’ve never had a political leader undermine them,” Cruz continued. “They despise you, Mr. Secretary, because you’re willing to let children be raped to follow political orders. This is a crisis. It’s a disgrace. And you won’t even admit this human tragedy as it is crisis.”

Mayorkas responded by saying he would not “address” Cruz’s remarks because he found them to be “revolting.”

“Your refusal to do your job is revolting!” Cruz fired back.

Another highlight from the hearing showed Mayorkas repeatedly dodging Cruz’s question of whether there was a crisis at the southern border.

“1 word. 1 syllable. 3 letters,” Cruz said. “That’s how someone answers a question & does their job. You’re being a politician misleading the American people.”

(FreedomWire.org) – Congressional Democrats of the Homeland Security Committee did not join a hearing that was held in McAllen, Texas on Wednesday where U.S. Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz  testified.

The Republican leadership of the committee sharply criticized the decision in statements released Monday.

“It’s deeply disappointing that the Minority members of the Committee have chosen to bail on this week’s full committee field hearing in Texas, only after they invited and confirmed a minority witness for one of the panels,” Committee chairman Rep. Mark Green of Tennessee told Fox News in a statement.

Green added, “the only message their absence sends is that they are uninterested in coming to the table to have a conversation about the devastation that this border crisis is having on Americans and their communities across the country. We will continue to encourage our Democrat colleagues to get out of the DC echo chamber and meet Americans where they are to discuss the biggest issues facing them.”

Ranking Democrat Member Bennie Thompson of Mississippi retorted with several demonstrably false claims. He complained, “it has become clear that Republicans planned to politicize this event from the start.” 

During the hearing, U.S. Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz testified that his agency does not have “operational control” over the nation’s borders after months of a record surge in migration.

When Rep. Mark Green (R-TN) asked Ortiz during a congressional hearing if the Department of Homeland Security has “operational control of our entire border,” Ortiz replied, “No, sir.”

Mayorkas said during a hearing in April that “we do” have operational control over the entire U.S. border.

In both instances, Ortiz and Mayorkas were shown the U.S. government’s technical definition of “operational control,” which “means the prevention of all unlawful entries into the United States.” 

The diverging answers from the nation’s top border officials comes amid record migration across the southern border, with Customs and Border Protection reporting migrant encounters at rates not seen in 20 years, as reported by Pew Research Center.

Pressed by Green to answer for the border situation, Ortiz stood by the work of border agents and said they are facing significant challenges.

“I have confidence in the men and women that are executing the mission out there to the best of their ability,” Ortiz said. “We have seen an increase in flow, and that has caused a considerable strain on our resources.”

(FreedomWire.org) – Now we know why Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas has been such a failure at his job.

In an interview with CNN host, and former Fox News host, Chris Wallace the secretary said that he was deeply concerned about being a “nation of immigrants” and insisted that there was more than one definition to the phrase “secure border.”

“Our goal is to achieve operational control of the border, to do everything that we can to support our personnel with the resources, the technology, the policies that really advance the security of the border, and do not come at the cost of the values of our country,” he said to Wallace.

“The law needs to be changed if it does not either meet our highest ideals or actually proves to be functional in the service of those ideals,” the secretary said.

And when confronted with the fact that many Republicans have demanded he resign, he was defiant.

“I’m not going to resign,” he said. “There’s a tremendous amount of work to do, and we are doing it and I’m incredibly proud to do it,” he said.

But Wallace pressed him on his insistence that the border is secure, which is when the secretary made his “nation of immigrants” comment.

“What does ‘secure’ mean to you?” the host said.

“There is not a common definition of that,” the secretary said. “If one looks at [Congress’s 2006] statutory definition, the literal interpretation of the statutory language, if one person successfully evades law enforcement at the border, then we have breached the security of the border … Our goal is to achieve operational control of the border, to do everything that we can to support our personnel with the resources, the technology, the policies, that really advance the security of the border, and do not come at the cost of the values of our country. I say that because in the prior [Donald Trump] administration, policies were promulgated or passed that did not hew to the values that we hold dear.:”

“We, in the United States, have tremendous pride in our country as a country, a place of refuge. We are a nation of immigrants. We are also a nation of laws. Those laws provide for humanitarian relief for those who qualify. They also provide that individuals who do not qualify will be removed. That’s how we do our work at the Department of Homeland Security,” he said.

Wallace pressed Mayorkas on why he would impose pro-migration policies that negatively affect American citizens and their families.

“My parents instilled in me the profound meaning of displacement, the yearning to give one’s children a better life than what the life one has had, [and] the fragility of life. And so I understand deeply the plight of individuals who will leave their homes, whether they flee persecution or aspire to a better life. We, in the United States, have tremendous pride in our country as a place of refuge. We are a nation of immigrants,” he said.

“My mother, given the tragedy that she lived through — her father lost everybody except the sister in the Holocaust — she understood that every day is a new life. The world did not have the privilege of recognizing the beauty of my parents. And through the work I do, I hope I can communicate that in some way,” he said.

This month Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) introduced a new article of impeachment against Mayorkas that accuses him of violating his oath of office and refusing to enforce duly-passed immigration laws. The report noted further that Biggs has often called for Mayorkas to be removed from his position, accusing him in 2021 of having “engaged in a pattern of conduct that is incompatible with his duties as an Officer of the United States,” Fox News reported.

After a record 2.3 million encounters with migrants crossing illegally into the U.S. during the fiscal year 2022 — and in December alone, more than 251,000 — the impeachment push has been renewed after Republicans took over the House in January.

“Secretary Mayorkas has failed to faithfully uphold his oath and has instead presided over a reckless abandonment of border security and immigration enforcement, at the expense of the Constitution and the security of the United States,” the article states, according to Fox News. “Secretary Mayorkas has violated, and continues to violate, this oath by failing to maintain operational control of the border and releasing hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens into the interior of the United States.”

(FreedomWire.org) – The Biden Department of Homeland Security has begun prepping for a potential impeachment battle over HHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

“The Department of Homeland Security has retained outside counsel to help ensure the Department’s vital mission is not interrupted by the unprecedented, unjustified, and partisan impeachment efforts by some Members of Congress, who have already taken steps to initiate proceedings,” a Homeland Security spokesperson told CNN.

“DHS will continue prioritizing its work to protect our country from terrorism, respond to natural disasters, and secure our borders while responding appropriately to the over 70 Congressional committees and subcommittees that have oversight of DHS,” the spokesperson added.

HHS was correct to note that there have been burgeoning “impeachment efforts” against Mayorkas.

But HHS was not correct to call the efforts “unprecedented, unjustified, and partisan,” according to Republicans.

For one thing, Democrats previously impeached former President Donald Trump twice, both times for flimsy reasons that led to no conviction. Note also that under his administration, the border was secure and border crossings fell to a record low rate.

Under this administration and under Mayorkas, more specifically, the border has been completely overrun, with 100,0000+ illegal aliens and so-called “migrants” crossing into the U.S. in any given month, including January.

So many migrants are flooding border communities that said communities have been forced to ship the illegals to northern “utopias” like New York City.

This, in turn, has greatly strained NYC’s resources, as the city has had to convert hotel after hotel into shelters for these hordes of migrants, including single migrant men.

Yet Democrats, including NYC Mayor Eric Adams, remain loyally supportive of the administration, despite its clear-cut failure to secure the border.

As for the Border Patrol agents who actually have to deal with all the hordes of migrants firsthand, they staunchly oppose this administration’s policies.

“Today, thousands of illegal aliens will crash the border and either escape or be released into a community near you. Most aren’t properly vetted. They will be ‘vetted’ based on their actions and behaviors in your community. And if they commit another crime it’s likely the kid gloves will come out and they’ll be coddled and protected. It’s insanity. Think about it,” the official U.S. Border Patrol union tweeted Saturday.

Whether the law firm will be able to prevent the hell awaiting Mayorkas remains to be seen. What’s known is that “House Republicans are really starting to build a case against Alejandro Mayorkas, the Homeland Security Secretary which could serve as the basis for potential impeachment proceedings,” as reported by CNN last month.

In addition, a total of three committees have thus far vowed to hold hearings on the border crisis, including the House Judiciary Committee, the House Oversight Committee, and the House Homeland Security Committee.

(FreedomWire.org) – Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is responding to Republicans who want him to resign or to impeach him.

He appeared on the ABC show “This Week” on Sunday and said he does not have any intention of resigning, knowing that he faces investigations and even a possible impeachment from the Republican House of Representatives.

“As of yesterday morning, Kevin McCarthy is speaker of the House. And back in November, he suggested that you might be impeached if you don’t resign. Here’s what he said,” host George Stephanopoulos said as he played a clip of what Speaker Kevin McCarthy said.

“If Secretary Mayorkas does not resign, House Republicans will investigate. Every order, every action and every failure will determine whether we can begin impeachment inquiry,” Mayorkas said.

“What’s your response to the speaker?” Stephanopoulos said.

“I am joining the president today on his visit to El Paso, Texas. I’ve been to the border quite a number of times,” Mayorkas said.

“I’m joining the president at the North Mexican Leader’s Summit in Mexico City to work with our partners in Mexico and Canada to address the security of the homeland. I’ve got a lot of work to do. I’m proud to do it, alongside 250,000 incredibly dedicated and talented individuals in the Department of Homeland Security and I’m going to continue to do my work,” Mayorkas said.

“So, you have no intention of resigning?” Stephanopoulos said.

“I do not. I’ve got a lot of work to do, and we’re going to do it,” Mayorkas said.

“Are you prepared for the investigations?” Stephanopoulos said.

“I am. I will be. And I’ll continue to do my work throughout them,” Mayorkas said.

Stephanopoulos asked, “As you said, you’re going to be joining the president today, both at the border and then on to Mexico. What do you hope to accomplish on this mission?

Mayorkas responded, “I have been to El Paso as recently as just a few weeks ago. I’ve been there quite a number of times. I’ve spoken with the president. He has requested my visits to the border. I have gone on my own, of course. And I want him to see the extraordinary work of the men and women of the United States Border Patrol, of Customs and Border Protection’s field operations, how we have surged resources to address a challenge that is not unique to the southern border of the United States. It’s a challenge that is really gripping our entire hemisphere.”

Mayorkas continued, “You know, George, I was in Columbia just a few weeks ago, the country of Columbia. And there are 2.4 million Venezuelans in Columbia now. I was in Costa Rica a few months ago, and Costa Rica’s population is increasing in the number of Nicaraguans. I was in Ecuador a few weeks ago and they too are really experiencing unprecedented migration challenges. This is something that is not unique to the United States. It’s gripping the hemisphere. And a regional challenge requires a regional solution. And that’s one of the elements of the North American Leader’s Summit that we look forward to addressing.”

The city of El Paso is putting its best face on for President Joe Biden who is finally making a visit to the Southern border.

The city has been cleaning up migrant encampments that have been languishing, ahead of the president’s photo op visit, The New York Post reported.

Encampments near the downtown bus station and the Sacred Heart Church, which operates a shelter, have been dismantled by local authorities over the last two nights as the city prepares to host President Biden’s first visit to the southern border, according to a photographer for The Post who witnessed it.

Six buses loaded with mostly Venezuelan migrants were spotted crossing a downtown bridge to Ciudad Juarez, the frontier city in Mexico, Saturday, as police escorted dozens more to a pedestrian crossing.

A Border Patrol agent who did not want to be identified told The Post that 200 people were sent back to Mexico Saturday.

“People are saying that if you are out in the streets the Border Patrol will get you and deport you because the President is coming to El Paso and they don’t want to show him the reality of things,” said Venezuelan migrant Maria Rodriguez said to The Post.

She said that for the past three days she has been living in a dumpster in El Paso.

“I hope we get shelter tonight because it took us a lot of courage to go out of that dumpster after three days…We just don’t want to keep running. All we are asking is for one chance,” she said.

(FreedomWire.org) – Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas did a video interview with The Washington Post on Wednesday, where he acknowledged that the unprecedented surge of undocumented migrants crossing the Southwest border is “straining the system.”

But in the next breath, Mayorkas also said the Biden administration is “managing” those encounters.

Mayorkas told the Washington Post on Wednesday:

“There’s no question that the number of encounters that we are experiencing at the border is straining our system. and this hearkens back to the question you previously posed, which is, we’re operating within a system that is fundamentally broken.

“No one disagrees with that. We just can’t seem to agree upon the solution, and a solution is long, long overdue.

“Within the broken immigration system that we are operating, we are managing the number of encounters, and we are prepared to address the end of Title 42. We’ve been preparing for this since well beyond last year.”

Responding to Mayorkas on Thursday morning, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said the Biden administration has “sabotaged” border security:

“They talk about it being broken,” Paxton said about the border:

“Yeah, it’s never been perfect. But we can see under the Trump administration, the numbers of illegal immigrants coming across the border and the amount of crime involved with that, whether it was drugs or human trafficking other things, was at a much lower level than it is now. It’s significantly worse. 

“They’ve created this — they’ve done it on purpose. And the fact they want more money — until they can figure out how to do it the right way, I wouldn’t give them another dime until we know how they’re going to use that that money.

“Because for all we know, they’re just going to use this money to encourage more illegal immigration and more drug trafficking.”

Under the Biden administration, prohibited immigrant encounters have actually skyrocketed, amounting to 5 million in simply under 2 years– more than in all of the Obama’s administration’s 8 years.

Mark Dannels, an Arizona sherriff, says that the DOJ has sued the state of Arizona for trying to protect the border. He also said the open border was by design from the Biden administration.

The Biden regime having the container border removed, just proves that Biden wants the border open.

(FreedomWire.org) – Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., on Wednesday revealed newly obtained documents that appeared to challenge DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ May testimony on the controversial Disinformation Governance Board.

In an open letter to Mayorkas, Hawley said the new documents expose that the Board’s plans to partner with Big Tech were “far more extensive” than DHS or the Biden administration has previously acknowledged.

Hawley and Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, published documents obtained by a whistleblower earlier this year detailing the scope of the Board.

Mayorkas has already come under fire for his mishandling of the Biden border crisis and calls for his impeachment have been making the rounds. If the Senate establishes as a fact that he lied under oath when testifying before its committees, his impeachment should really be a no-brainer, though the Biden administration will likely seek to defend him and keep him in office, probably with the support of most congressional Democrats.

During his testimony in May, Mayorkas claimed that the Ministry of Truth had only been in its planning stages and that the board “had not yet met” to plan any actions. But the leaked documents show that the board had initially met on Feb. 4, 2022, and had continued to schedule weekly meetings thereafter, despite not having been formally approved or established.

Further, the documents indicate that the board’s plans to partner with the Big Tech companies were “far more extensive” than Mayorkas or the Biden administration ever revealed. The Disinformation Board planned to meet with Nathaniel Gleicher of Meta, who was in charge of the company’s security policy group when they acted to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop story.

These revelations only serve to add another layer to the cake of badness surrounding the Biden administration’s coordination with social media platforms in an effort to suppress free speech in the name of “battling disinformation.” These efforts to enlist the aid of Big Tech to silence voices critical of various government policies are a clear violation of the First Amendment’s assurances of the right to free speech. They should be seen as obvious justifications for the impeachment of not only Mayorkas but Joe Biden himself.

(FreedomWire.org) – Kevin McCarthy went to El Paso on Tuesday, an area hard hit by illegal immigrants, and put DHS Secretary Mayorkas on notice. He told Mayorkas to resign or face Congressional investigations after the Republican majority comes into office in January which may lead to his impeachment. McCarthy called a press conference and, as usual, when I checked only Fox was carrying it. The other cable networks show no interest in covering the Biden border crisis unless the administration is fabricating a hoax like Whipgate and falsely accusing Border Patrol agents of abusive behavior towards illegal immigrants. Then, when the investigations proved that there was no unprofessional abuse directed at the illegal immigrants, there were no apologies issued by those who slandered the agents or reports of back pay from suspensions. McCarthy said enough is enough.

“His actions have produced the great wave of illegal immigration in recorded history,” McCarthy said at a press conference in El Paso, Texas, during a tour of the southern border. “This is why today I am calling on the secretary to resign.”

“He cannot and must not remain in that position,” he said. “If Secretary Mayorkas does not resign, House Republicans will investigate every order, every action and every failure to determine whether we can begin an impeachment inquiry.”

“The American public deserves more, deserves better and expects more within their government. Enough is enough. We will do whatever it takes,” he said.

Republicans have been talking about the Biden border crisis since it began just before his inauguration. Biden campaigned on ending deportations, blanket amnesty, and abandoning the rule of law at the southern border and those wishing to come to the United States took him up on the implied invitation. The rest is history.

The unprecedented number of illegal immigrants crossing the border is being ignored by the Biden administration because it is an intentional invasion. What else would you call it? There are too many to process because resources – personnel and financial – are limited. So, they are released into the country, sometimes with instructions to check in with ICE when they get to where they are going. What could possibly go wrong?

It’s all intentional. The five million illegal immigrants apprehended at the southern border since Joe Biden’s term began did not just happen. This was the plan all along. Last week Chuck Schumer said the quiet part out loud. He said that in the lame duck session, the Senate will take up blanket amnesty for all illegal aliens in our country. Not just the Dreamers, who are usually the ones talked about when amnesty comes up, but everyone. Schumer casually said that it may be 11 million people but he’s not sure of the actual number. That’s one of the problems – no one knows how many there are. Of the recorded apprehensions at the border, the totals don’t include those who are gotaways, the ones who ran instead of turning themselves in to law enforcement. And, most who come are coming to find jobs, which is not a legit reason to grant asylum as current immigration laws are written.

Schumer conveniently waited until after the mid-term elections to announce his agenda. Democrats have had complete control of Washington for two years and yet never broached this subject until just now.

McCarthy said that the hearings into Mayorkas’ management of the southern border will be held on the border, which is an excellent idea. Let the White House call it political theatre. The fact is that it will be rather difficult for Mayorkas to continue to lie and claim that the southern border is secure and not wide open when he is on the border himself, among the very Border Patrol agents who deal with the border day in and day out.

Title 42 is coming to an end next month and that means there will be an explosion of additional apprehensions at the border, if Border Patrol agents can keep up. Joe Biden was determined to end all of Trump’s border policies and agreements in order to show how humane he is towards illegal immigrants. The Biden border crisis is anything but humane. It is a humanitarian crisis. It is a dereliction of duty by the president, whose primary job is to secure the borders, protect America’s sovereignty. Mayorkas says he has a plan for when Title 42 (a program put in place at the recommendation of the CDC) ends. We’ll believe it when we see it. So far he has shown no ability to control anything. He looks people in the eye and says that the border is secure when he knows that is a lie. Who would trust his word now?

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called McCarthy’s trip to the border a political stunt. Because that is all she has. There is nothing worthwhile she can say that the administration is doing on the border so she has to mock lawmakers who are trying to do something. She said they have no plans but the first action will be to begin investigations and try to remove the secretary. That is how it’s done in the business world – a failing manager is fired and replaced. So, yes, that is something.

“I’ve heard that Kevin McCarthy is at the border, and the question we have for Kevin McCarthy–who’s soon to be Speaker McCarthy–is, what is his plan? What is he doing to help the situation that we’re seeing?” Jean-Pierre began. “He goes down there, and he does a political stunt like many Republicans do, but he is not actually putting forth a plan.”

The White House is supposed to have the plan, KJP. Republicans aren’t in control of anything right now. They are organizing, though, and soon some will be held accountable for some of the crises created by Sleepy Joe and his administration. I certainly appreciate the fact that McCarthy is talking about impeachment in order to get rid of Mayorkas but the one problem with that is he is doing Joe Biden’s bidding. He’s following orders from the White House. He would be replaced by someone equally as bad. The solution is to fire Joe Biden in 2024 and get a Republican president in the White House who values border security and American sovereignty, as well as the rule of law. Let Congress fight over reforming immigration law but the border has to be secured first before anything else happens.

(FreedomWire.org) – During an appearance on Sunday’s broadcast of ABC’s “This Week,” Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas downplayed what has been panned as a lackluster effort by the Biden administration at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Mayorkas told anchor Martha Raddatz he thought the Biden administration was doing a “good job.”

Raddatz asked, “What is the plan on the border? You really do have migrants flooding that area. The peak was during the Trump administration, May of 2019, at 144,000 crossings. In May of this year, you hit 240,000 crossings. You may be telling people to stay away, but they keep coming.”

“For the first time since 2011, the president’s fiscal year 2023 budget calls for 300 more Border Patrol agents. And we are hiring case processers. We are addressing this issue vigorously and aggressively, to address the amount of — the number of encounters that we are experiencing at the southern border,” Mayorkas said.

“Just a simple question: Do you think it’s working?” Raddatz asked.

“I think that we are doing a good job,” Mayorkas replied. “We need to do better. We are focused on doing more, and we are doing it with our partners to the south. This is a — this is a phenomena that not only the United States is experiencing. Colombia now has more than 2 million Venezuelans within its borders. Costa Rica has indicated that 2% of its population is Nicaraguan, and that might rise to 5%.”

Mayorkas may be the only one in America, who thinks that they are “doing a good job.”