{"id":1917067,"date":"2023-04-20T07:26:04","date_gmt":"2023-04-20T11:26:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/mayorkas-draws-fire-from-republicans-at-committee-hearing\/"},"modified":"2023-04-20T07:28:30","modified_gmt":"2023-04-20T11:28:30","slug":"mayorkas-draws-fire-from-republicans-at-committee-hearing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/mayorkas-draws-fire-from-republicans-at-committee-hearing\/","title":{"rendered":"Mayorkas Draws Fire From Republicans at Committee Hearing"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">16<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fmayorkas-draws-fire-from-republicans-at-committee-hearing%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1917067&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div class=\"post_content\">\n<div class=\"aplayer_app\" data-source=\"https:\/\/vs1.youmaker.com\/assets\/2023\/0419\/bace5edb-7dac-40cc-abaa-8b6694048b6f\/audio.mp3?length=4582413&#038;duration=382\"><\/div>\n<\/p>\n<p>A House committee hearing on the 2024 budget proposal for the Department of Homeland Security became a veritable trial of Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, whom Republicans accused of intentionally failing to secure the U.S. border with Mexico.<\/p>\n<p>Committee Democrats tried, with little success, to turn the April 19 hearing of the Committee on Homeland Security back to a discussion of the budget, accusing their GOP counterparts of politicizing a crisis that had grown worse under administrations of both parties, and of grandstanding in order to gain media attention.<\/p>\n<h2>The Republican Case<\/h2>\n<p>Chairman Mark E. Green (R-Tenn.) assumed the role of prosecutor in his opening statement.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYour job is to protect the homeland,\u201d Green said, addressing Mayorkas.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_5130635\" style=\"width: 640px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/img.theepochtimes.com\/assets\/uploads\/2023\/03\/17\/Mark-Green-GettyImages-1247558443-1200x800.jpg\"><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><noscript><\/noscript><\/figcaption><\/a> Committee chairman Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.) speaks during a House Homeland Security Committee hearing in Washington on Feb. 28, 2023. (Drew Angerer\/Getty Images)<\/figure>\n<p>\u201cAnd one of those obvious duties is to secure the United States\u2019 sovereign borders and to implement the laws duly passed by Congress.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHowever, you have not secured our borders, Mr. Secretary, and I believe you\u2019ve done so intentionally. There is no other explanation for the systematic dismantling and transformation of our border into a lawless and dangerous open border,\u201d Green said.<\/p>\n<p>Green and others provided a barrage of statistics on the border crisis, including encounters with 257,910 immigrants by border agents in March, 34,000 apprehensions of illegal immigrants, 10,800 \u201cgotaways,\u201d and the seizure of 580 pounds of marijuana and 202 pounds of fentanyl in a single week in April.<\/p>\n<p>A specific charge made by Green is that Mayorkas lied to Congress on April 28, 2022, when he was asked whether DHS had \u201coperational control\u201d of the southern border.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes, we do,\u201d Mayorkas said at the time.<\/p>\n<p>By law, operational control is defined as preventing all unlawful entries into the United States.\u00a0In March 2023, Mayorkas stated at another congressional hearing that DHS did not have operational control by that definition.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou make it very clear, Mr. Secretary, that you\u2019ve known all along according to the definition that is written in the law, passed by the Congress, that you do not have operational control,\u201d Green said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd yet in testimony to this house, under oath, the definition was read to you. You\u2019re asked, according to that definition, whether control exists, and you say \u2018yes\u2019. That sounds like a lie under oath.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_4096795\" style=\"width: 640px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/img.theepochtimes.com\/assets\/uploads\/2021\/11\/10\/bennie-thompson-1200x801.jpg\"><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><noscript><\/noscript><\/figcaption><\/a> Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), chair of the select committee investigating the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol breach, speaks in Washington on Oct. 19, 2021. (Alex Wong\/Getty Images)<\/figure>\n<p>Moments later, when Mayorkas denied knowledge of an alleged strategy used by drug cartels to get around border agents, Green said,\u00a0\u201cNot only have you lied under oath, you just admitted your own incompetence.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mayorkas, when given the chance to defend his 2022 answer, said he was not given an opportunity to give a complete answer during that hearing. He said that no secretary has been able to meet the standard of operational control defined as allowing not a single illegal entry into the country.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have testified under oath multiple times that I use a lens of reasonableness in defining operational control. We are maximizing the resources that we have to deliver the most effective results, and under that definition, we are doing so very much to gain operational control,\u201d Mayorkas said.<\/p>\n<h2>Democrats to the Defense<\/h2>\n<p>Democrats responded by denouncing the attacks on Mayorkas\u2019s job performance as an attempt to divert attention from their own failures.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey don\u2019t want solutions to homeland security challenges. They want to make a headline or photo. They want a political wedge issue,\u201d Ranking Member Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) said.<\/p>\n<p>Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) reminded the committee that conditions on the border were not ideal under the previous administration either.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy Republican colleagues have been painting quite the picture today,\u201d she said to Mayorkas.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd to hear them tell it, you inherited a secure orderly situation at the border. I for one have been to the border many times in the midst of mass confusion,\u201d she said. \u201cThat, of course, was not under your tenure.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_4974618\" style=\"width: 640px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/img.theepochtimes.com\/assets\/uploads\/2023\/01\/10\/article-image-cal-thomas-2-1200x777.jpeg\"><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><noscript><\/noscript><\/figcaption><\/a> Illegal immigrants thread their way along footpaths just north of the Mexico\/Arizona border. (Don Bartletti\/Los Angeles Times)<\/figure>\n<p>Jackson Lee said that border patrol recorded 41 percent more illegal entries into the coun<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A House committee hearing on the 2024 budget proposal for the Department of Homeland Security became a veritable trial of Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, whom Republicans accused of intentionally failing to secure the U.S. border with Mexico. Committee Democrats tried, with little success, to turn the April 19 hearing of the Committee on Homeland Security back<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1793,"featured_media":1917068,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[543],"tags":[4384,10903,3679,5058,3756],"class_list":["post-1917067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-epoch-times","tag-committee","tag-draws","tag-hearing","tag-mayorkas","tag-republicans"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1917067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1793"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1917067"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1917067\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1917068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1917067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1917067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1917067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}