Watch Live: House committee holds final impeachment hearing for DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas

Washington — Home Republicans are transferring shortly on advancing impeachment proceedings in opposition to Homeland Safety Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, holding their second and ultimate listening to on the matter in eight days. 

At Thursday’s listening to earlier than the Home Homeland Safety Committee stated, lawmakers will hear from an Arizona sheriff and other people whose relations have died because of fentanyl overdoses or violent crime.

Republicans have repeatedly accused Mayorkas of failing to implement the nation’s legal guidelines as a file variety of migrants arrived on the U.S.-Mexico border.

The Division of Homeland Safety, or DHS, has criticized the impeachment effort as a “baseless” political assault and Democrats have argued there is no such thing as a authorized foundation for impeaching Mayorkas. 

Forward of the listening to, Home Republicans and DHS clashed over whether or not Mayorkas will seem in individual through the impeachment proceedings. Republicans needed Mayorkas to attend this week’s listening to, however he declined, citing a conflicting assembly with Mexican officers about border enforcement. The secretary agreed to testify, however requested to coordinate a time that works for his schedule. 

GOP Rep. Mark Inexperienced of Tennessee, the committee’s chairman, on Wednesday requested Mayorkas to supply written testimony for Thursday’s listening to “in order that our committee members could hear from you straight,” in response to a letter obtained by CBS Information. 

“As said in earlier letters to you, your perspective on the disaster on the border and actions you may have taken as secretary are priceless for the members of the committee and the American public to listen to. Regretfully, each invitation for nearly half a 12 months we prolonged to you to testify targeted particularly on the border disaster has been rejected or topic to infinite delay ways,” Inexperienced stated. 

Punchbowl Information first reported on the letter. 

DHS stated Mayorkas has testified earlier than Congress greater than every other Cupboard official — 27 occasions in lower than three years. The committee has additionally not communicated with the division within the final week about alternate dates for Mayorkas to testify, a spokesperson stated. 

“That is simply the most recent instance of Committee Republicans’ sham course of. It is abundantly clear that they aren’t fascinated with listening to from Secretary Mayorkas because it would not match into their bad-faith, predetermined and unconstitutional rush to question him,” spokesperson Mia Ehrenberg stated in a press release Wednesday. 

Attorneys basic from Montana, Oklahoma and Missouri testified on the first impeachment listening to, highlighting the influence of migration on their states beneath Mayorkas’ management. They attributed drug and trafficking incidents of their communities to the surge of migrants on the southern border.

Even when the GOP-controlled Home impeaches Mayorkas, it’s extremely unlikely that he could be convicted in a trial within the Senate, which has a Democratic majority and would require a vote of two-thirds of senators to take away him from workplace. However Mayorkas could be the primary Cupboard official to be impeached since 1876. 

Nikole Killion, Nicole Sganga and Camilo Montoya-Galvez contributed reporting.

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