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EXCLUSIVE: A key moderate Republican lawmaker is coming out in help of impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, bringing House GOP leaders one step nearer to unifying their convention on the problem.
Rep. John James, R-Mich., who represents a swing district that former President Donald Trump gained by simply 1% in 2020, instructed Fox News Digital that not solely should Mayorkas be impeached however tried for treason as effectively.
“Secretary Mayorkas must be impeached and tried for treason,” he stated.
“Evidence will prove that Mayorkas’ sustained and willful betrayal of the public trust makes him an accessory to the poisoning of millions of Americans, complicit in a modern-day slave trade and so derelict in his duty to secure the homeland that it crosses unequivocally into the realm of high crimes and misdemeanors.”
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is being focused by House Republicans over the border disaster. (REUTERS/Sarah Silbiger)
House Republicans kicked off the method to question Mayorkas final week when the Homeland Security Committee held its first listening to into the matter on Wednesday.
Democrats have decried the transfer as political, whereas Republicans have accused Mayorkas of being accountable for the migrant disaster on the southern border. The quantity of encounters on the U.S.-Mexico border broke 300,000 for the month of December, shattering data.
Any future House flooring vote on impeachment will possible not get any help from the left. For GOP management, meaning bringing collectively a Republican convention that has been extremely fractured for a lot of this time period and getting moderates like James on board.
Under the present circumstances, House GOP leaders can not lose greater than two votes to nonetheless move something alongside get together strains.
Rep. John James, R-Mich., got here out in favor of impeaching DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc by way of Getty Images)
James was amongst greater than 60 House Republicans who visited the border in the beginning of this month.
“I believe that legal immigration is an economic and moral imperative for this nation. But we’re talking about border security right now,” he instructed reporters on a press name afterward.
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“We have Border Patrol agents that are underfunded, that are underappreciated, and they’re at their wit’s end. And part of the only reason they’re still sticking around is because if they leave, they feel like they’re leaving their buddies behind. That resonates with me… as a former military member.”
James additionally mentioned the toll of human trafficking by smugglers taking individuals throughout the border illegally.
“These are human beings we’re talking about. These are men and women. These are children,” he stated. “These are God’s creatures, who are being herded like cattle, like chattel, like, like animals, by these coyotes. And they’re being bought and sold to the tune of $32 million per week just in the Del Rio sector.”
Migrants wait to be processed by the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol after they crossed the Rio Grande and entered the U.S. from Mexico in Eagle Pass, Texas, on Oct. 19, 2023. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)
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Republicans have blamed the Biden administration for fueling the disaster by rolling again Trump-era border insurance policies.
House conservatives are presently pushing to convey many of them again by way of their very own border safety invoice, generally known as H.R.2.
Meanwhile, talks are ongoing in the Senate to cobble collectively a border safety deal — talks which Mayorkas has been half of.
Asked for touch upon Republicans’ impeachment push, a DHS spokesperson instructed Fox News Digital in a memo, “After decades of Congressional inaction on our broken immigration laws, Secretary Mayorkas and a bipartisan group of Senators are working hard to try and find real solutions to address these challenges. Instead of working in a bipartisan way to fix our broken immigration laws, the House Majority is wasting time on baseless and pointless political attacks by trying to impeach Secretary Mayorkas.”
The memo additionally pointed out that Republican lawmakers have fundraised off the Mayorkas impeachment push and the rhetoric round it, and that some in the GOP have decried it as a waste of time.
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