Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is confused as to why Republicans are pursuing his impeachement.
Mayorkas has overseen an explosion of illegal immigration that has led to humanitarian and legal crises on the U.S. southern border and a political firestorm in Washington, D.C. The U.S. House is expected to vote on articles of impeachment against the Homeland Security secretary Tuesday after they were passed out of committee on a party line vote last week.
“Very difficult to make sense of it,” Mayorkas said of the impeachment push, according to The Washington Post. “It’s very difficult. So I don’t try to make sense of it.”
“I’m doing my work. I’m doing my work. And um, making sure it doesn’t distract me from it,” he added.
Mayorkas joined the Biden administration early, being confirmed to his cabinet post in February 2021. Mayorkas complained to the Post that he did not expect the blowback he has received since taking the position.
“I did not expect this level of polarization. And I did not expect this level of politics,” Mayorkas said. “Level and nature of politics.”
Republicans on the House Homeland Security committee passed two articles of impeachment against Mayorkas last week, accusing the secretary of “breach of trust” and “willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law.” The situation at the southern border has received bipartisan criticism and recognition even from the White House that the levels of immigration constitute a crisis.
The U.S. Border Patrol has recorded roughly 8.5 million encounters with illegal immigrations since Biden took office, according to Department of Homeland Security data. Since February 2021 through September, the Border Patrol has released about 2.3 million people into the U.S.
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Another roughly 2 million others have entered the United States illegally as “gotaways,” or those seen making the crossing but not intercepted by law enforcement. The real number of gotaways including those who were not surveilled entering the country could be hundreds of thousands more.
Fiscal year 2023 set a record for the number of illegal immigrants encountered at the border – roughly 3.2 million. That broke the previous record set just the year before at 2.7 million.
