Rep. Monica De La Cruz (R-TX) introduced legislation Friday that would prevent Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas from flying on federal aircraft until he proposes a plan to secure the U.S. southern border.
The “Mayorkas Must Fly Coach Until We Secure the Border Act” would strip the Department of Homeland Security secretary’s office of funding for private flights and force Mayorkas to fly commercially for official work. De La Cruz’s legislation comes as Mayorkas faces a wave of criticism for his response to a record surge of illegal immigrants.
“This bill simply recognizes what is already obvious to South Texans and millions of Americans: Secretary Mayorkas’ failure to secure the southern border has hurt the American people and resulted in a humanitarian crisis in communities like mine,” De La Cruz said in a statement provided to The Daily Wire. “If he refuses to fulfill the most basic functions of his office, he should be stripped of the private flights he currently enjoys, courtesy of American taxpayers, until he does his job.”
The bill is co-sponsored by Reps. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), Andy Ogles (R-TN), Derrick Van Orden (R-WI), Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL), and Majorie Taylor Greene (R-GA).
Republicans in the House and Senate have pushed for Mayorkas to be impeached, and Rep. Pat Fallon (R-TX) filed articles of impeachment for “high crimes and misdemeanors” against the DHS secretary in January. The impeachment articles were filed after Republicans took over the House following the 2022 midterm elections, and new House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) pledged to investigate Mayorkas.
De La Cruz was one of the Republicans who helped the party flip the House when she became the first Republican to represent Texas’ historically blue 15th district. The freshman congresswoman campaigned heavily on tightening border security to protect Texans.
The U.S. Border Patrol reported encounters with migrants along the U.S.-Mexico border in the 2021 fiscal year were more than quadruple the number of the prior fiscal year and the highest annual total on record, according to Pew Research.
Then in fiscal year 2022, the U.S. saw 2,378,944 encounters at the border, excluding the nearly 600,000 known “gotaways” who escaped custody altogether. Under Mayorkas’ watch, arrests of terror suspects crossing the southern border have also soared from three arrests of individuals on the terror watch list in 2020 to nearly 100 in 2022.
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Brandon Drey contributed to this report.