GOP puts immigration front and center with border visit and a new impeachment push

WASHINGTON — Pushing to make border security a central issue in 2024, House Speaker Mike Johnson and dozens of House Republicans headed to the southern border in Texas on Wednesday to draw attention to record migrant crossings and bash the Biden administration’s enforcement of immigration laws.

“Under President Biden, our Southern border is a disaster,” Johnson posted on X before a news conference with more than 60 House Republicans in Eagle Pass, Texas. The town has become a symbol of the need for immigration reform after images of hundreds of migrants amassing at the border circulated in the media.

The visit comes as House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green, R-Tenn., said Wednesday that his panel will officially begin its effort next week to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for failing to secure the border — though there’s no guarantee Republicans will have enough votes to impeach him on the floor.

Green said the first impeachment hearing, titled “Havoc in the Heartland: How Secretary Mayorkas’ Failed Leadership Has Impacted the States,” will take place on Jan. 10, the same week lawmakers return from their holiday break.

“Our investigation made clear that this crisis finds its foundation in Secretary Mayorkas’ decision-making and refusal to enforce the laws passed by Congress, and that his failure to fulfill his oath of office demands accountability,” Green, who joined Johnson at the border, said in a statement Wednesday.

The chairman’s decision to press forward with impeachment follows the panel’s nearly yearlong investigation into Mayorkas and the border, culminating in a fifth and final interim report released on Dec. 21.

GOP Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, one of Donald Trump’s most loyal allies on Capitol Hill, had unsuccessfully pushed to impeach Mayorkas multiple times. On Nov. 13, the House voted to refer her latest impeachment resolution against Mayorkas to the Homeland Security panel.

Addressing the developments Wednesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Mayorkas pointed to his meetings on Capitol Hill with a bipartisan group of senators trying to secure a deal to fix the immigration system. And Mayorkas said he and Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Mexico President Andrés Manuel López Obrador last week to discuss ways to address rampant migration due to things like climate change and political instability — what he called a “regional problem that is challenging our entire hemisphere.”

The secretary also called on Congress to pass Biden’s $106 billion supplemental package that includes aid for Ukraine and Israel as well as border security funding. Johnson and House Republicans, however, insist they won’t approve any foreign aid without tough border and immigration policies. 

“More border patrol agents, more asylum officers, more immigration judges, more investment in technology to battle the scourge of fentanyl,” Mayorkas said on MSNBC. “We are focused on fixing the challenge, on fixing the problem. We are focused on solutions.”

White House spokesperson Andrew Bates knocked Johnson for traveling to the border rather than staying in Washington and helping to support the Senate border talks. Bates also took aim at Republicans for pushing for budget cuts last year that would have impacted border security.

“Actions speak louder than words,” Bates said in a statement. “House Republicans’ anti-border security record is defined by attempting to cut Customs and Border Protection personnel, opposing President Biden’s record-breaking border security funding, and refusing to take up the President’s supplemental funding request.”

The back-and-forth over the border comes as U.S. Customs and Border Protection is experiencing record migrant border crossings. CBP encountered roughly 300,000 migrants at the southwest border in December, a record high, according to two Department of Homeland Security officials. Last month, CBP also saw the highest daily crossings on record at the southwest border, at times eclipsing 12,000 per day.

However, officials said the number of crossings often fluctuates. And on Monday, CBP said it encountered fewer than 500 migrants in the Del Rio sector of Texas, which includes Eagle Pass. Those lower figures came as the Biden administration announced it was reopening four ports of entry at the southern border, including at Eagle Pass, that had been closed due to the record influx of migrants.