WASHINGTON (NewsNation) — The pressure against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas from House Republicans only continues to grow, with a weeks-long investigation into his border policy decisions now officially underway and some lawmakers calling for his impeachment.
The border remained front and center Wednesday on Capitol Hill during a House Committee on Homeland Security hearing focused on Mayorkas and the impact of his policies.
“We believe that America will come to concur with our assessment that Secretary Mayorkas has completely failed the nation and should be removed from office through the congressional process,” Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.) said.
Despite the number of border apprehensions plummeting since the pandemic-era border policy Title 42 expired last month, Republicans blasted Mayorkas and his decisions for the border crisis while Democrats accused Republicans of playing politics.
“The only dereliction of duty here is House Republicans wasting time on political games instead of focusing on the real problems that we need to tackle to protect the Homeland,” Rep. Seth Magaziner (D-R.I.) said.
Lawmakers in the Senate also focused on the border Wednesday, putting a spotlight on unaccompanied children at the border.
Republicans accused President Joe Biden’s team of not doing enough to stop migrant children from becoming victims of labor trafficking.
Numbers from U.S. Customs and Border Protection show that during the last fiscal year, agents encountered over 150,000 unaccompanied children at the border, which the Council on Foreign Relations described as an all-time high.
So far this fiscal year, up to April, those encounters totaled more than 80,000.
It’s unknown what sort of impact Title 42’s expiration will have on those numbers, which allowed the U.S. to expel migrants at the border citing a public health emergency.
As far as legislation, Republicans introduced a bill last week to require family DNA testing at the southern border.
It remains unknown if any Democrats will support the measure.