As the U.S. House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee began impeachment hearings, Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody is renewing calls to Congress to impeach U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
Attorney General Moody previously led a multistate effort calling for Mayorkas’s resignation in February 2022 and urged Congress to impeach Mayorkas in April 2023. As monthly encounter numbers continue to break records, it is clear that there is no end in sight.
“Secretary Mayorkas has undoubtedly orchestrated the most destructive and harmful border security policies in the history of the United States,” Republican Attorney General Ashley Moody said. “Every time we believe the numbers cannot possibly get worse, they do. With every court battle we have won, and every fact we have revealed, to say he has been derelict in his duties is an understatement. I have been calling for him to resign or be removed for nearly two years and with every passing month, this crisis worsens, straining public resources and endangering American citizens. The United States House of Representatives has a duty and responsibility to the American people. Secretary Mayorkas must be impeached.”
The renewed call comes in response to an announcement that the United States House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee set the first impeachment hearing for Sec. Mayorkas. Since Attorney General Moody’s multistate effort to remove Mayorkas from office, the crisis at the border has intensified and continues to shatter records in the worst way.
In March 2023, a federal court agreed with Attorney General Moody’s office finding Sec. Mayorkas and the Biden administration responsible for the border crisis. During the course of discovery and litigation in that case, Florida forced the federal government to provide or disclose the following:
- A deposition of former U.S. Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz showing the Biden administration purposely reduced detention capacity of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and narrowed removal pathways. Ortiz claimed these changes left Border Patrol with no other choice but to release hundreds of thousands of immigrants into the interior. Ortiz also agreed that Biden’s policies caused the unprecedented surge at the border;
- A memo outlining the federal government’s plan in the event immigrants overrun the border when Title 42 expired—the mass-release of migrants into the United States;
- Testimony and deposition of ICE Executive Associate Director for Enforcement and Removal Operations Corey Price confirming the Biden administration knew its immigration priorities would cut enforcement in half and still implemented them. Price also confirmed that ICE is removing more than seven times fewer inadmissible immigrants than in 2012, booking in roughly half the number of immigrants than the previous administration; and
- ICE training videos showing officials discussing the logistical problems created when federal authorities intentionally released tens of thousands of immigrants without charging documents—a formal legal document requiring immigrants to appear before an immigration judge.
The court found that “the evidence establishes that Defendants [including Secretary Mayorkas] have effectively turned the Southwest Border into a meaningless line in the sand” and that Secretary Mayorkas’ “actions were akin to posting a flashing ‘Come In, We’re Open’ sign on the southern border.”
