Scalise: Secretary Mayorkas Has Failed Miserably at His Job
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) appeared on Fox Business Network’s Kudlow with Senator Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.) to discuss the failures of Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas and the Biden Administration at our southern border. Leader Scalise emphasized how President Biden continues to shift blame and spread lies about his refusal to take executive action within his power in response to the border crisis. Leader Scalise also highlighted the House’s articles of impeachment against Secretary Mayorkas, which is a direct response to Mayorkas’ dereliction of duty to secure our homeland, resulting in over 8 million people illegally entering our country and fentanyl ravaging our communities.
On House Republicans’ work to address Biden’s border crisis:
“President Biden created this problem – make no mistake about it. And he has the legal authority to fix this problem. Frankly, he has a constitutional mandate to secure our nation. Our nation is not secure when you have thousands of people coming across every day from countries, by the way, that want to do us harm. That's why we put together a really good bill over six months ago, H.R. 2, as you talked about – a bill that gets back to the things that you need to do to have real asylum. If you want to seek asylum, you need to stay in your home country; 'Remain in Mexico' and catch and release, all the things that need to happen – build the wall – are in that bill. And the president doesn't want to negotiate on it.
“Speaker Johnson's been very clear: Any other discussions that they want about Ukraine, anything else, are non-starters until we secure America's border. We have to focus on that. We have a bill to do it. We laid out a template. What we're hearing out of the Senate, where they'll allow thousands more people to come across illegal, is a non-starter that's dead on arrival.
“We already have open borders. We need to secure our border. We showed the country how to do it with H.R. 2. The president needs to get in this game; he could do it on his own through executive action. He refuses to because President Biden wants an open border. It's why Mayorkas is under heat today with this impeachment proceeding. President Biden's underwater on this issue, too, because the country is fed up. The country wants a secure border, and so does this Congress.”
On the failures of Secretary Mayorkas:
“Well, first of all, Secretary Mayorkas's job is to protect America's homeland: He's the Homeland Security Secretary. And when 8 million people have come across our border illegally, including people on the terrorist watch list, he has failed miserably at his job of keeping our country safe and secure. And when he comes before Congress, he testifies under oath that America's border is secure. That's a flat out lie. Either he's ignorant of the facts that are going on at the border, which he can't be because everybody sees what's going on. President Biden is desperate to try to assign blame to somebody else. He put his own vice president in charge of border security, and she doesn't want to have anything to do with it. She's failed miserably at the job.
“But the Secretary of Homeland Security is the person in charge of the border. He can secure the border today. He's chosen not to, and that's a failure of his job. That's why he's facing impeachment proceedings today. And by the way, he's had months, months Larry, to get this right. He's chosen not to. So he's brought it upon himself, so has Joe Biden.”
On House Republicans’ articles of impeachment against Mayorkas:
“Yes, it'll get out of committee tonight. It'll be on the floor next week for the full House to vote on. And look, it's unfortunate we're at this spot, Larry, but the country is fed up. The country wants and deserves a secure border. And we've got a border security chief who doesn't want to secure America's border. We've got a president who doesn't want to secure America's border, but the country demands it.
“When you look at the events around the world, to allow people from every country – we're not talking about South and Central America right now – there's over 160 different countries represented coming across our border illegally as we speak right now, every single day. And as Senator Hagerty talked about the deaths from fentanyl, 150 young people a day are dying from the drugs that are being brought across our border because the drug cartels have been allowed to have operational control of our border under Secretary Mayorkas. That's another national disgrace that they're allowing to happen. So all this is going on in full public view. The public's watching it: They're fed up. And if the secretary won't do his job, let's impeach him and have somebody else do the job.”