GOP lawmaker says Mayorkas paying ‘public relations price’ with impeachment

Rep. French Hill (R-Ark.) on Tuesday said Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas will pay the “public relations price” for President Biden’s handling of the border when he is impeached by the House.

“This is the Biden’s policy, but Mayorkas has been an uncooperative Cabinet secretary. He’s violated the law, he’s not been truthful to Congress, and Congress has fed up with it,” he said in an interview on Fox Business’s “Mornings with Maria.”

Hill argued Biden has the power to shut down the border today.

“The president could take executive action to do it today,” he said. “It doesn’t need more money. It needs action. And this is what’s disappointing to people, and that’s why Mayorkas is going to pay this public relations price by being impeached for the first time since 1876,” he said.

The House is expected to impeach Mayorkas in a Tuesday evening vote after failing to do so last week; House Republicans brought impeachment articles to the floor last week but did not have the votes to pass them.

But Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.), who was absent last week, is expected to attend Tuesday’s vote, which should put the GOP effort over the top.

Mayorkas would be the first Cabinet-level official to be impeached since 1876.

The articles of impeachment accuse Mayorkas of violating immigration law by not detaining enough migrants and say he has “violated the public trust.”

Mayorkas and the Biden administration have pushed back on the efforts to impeach the Cabinet secretary. Mayorkas said in a Sunday appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he was facing “baseless allegations.”

The Department of Homeland Security released a memo ahead of the vote Tuesday arguing against the “baseless push” to impeach Mayorkas. The memo included excerpts from conservatives and legal experts that say impeaching Mayorkas is unconstitutional.

“If Members of Congress care about our national security, they should listen to their fellow Republicans and stop wasting time on this pointless, unconstitutional impeachment – time that could be spent addressing the issue by advancing bipartisan legislation to fix our broken immigration laws and provide needed resources for border security,” the memo states.