House Republicans on Wednesday accused Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas of being derelict in his duties to protect the Southwest border, violating laws and lying to Americans. 

During a hearing of the House Homeland Security Committee, Chairman Mark Green, R-Tenn., called for President Joe Biden to fire Mayorkas. 

“Our investigation will show the president why he should fire Mayorkas immediately or own this failure himself,” Green said.

At a news conference earlier Wednesday, Green said House Republicans are launching their formal investigation into Mayorkas, which he said he expects to take 11 to 12 weeks. Several Republicans have called for Mayorkas to be impeached — including one who introduced articles of impeachment last week — although Green said, “We haven’t even gotten to that word, that process.”

Green said during Wednesday’s hearing that Mayorkas’ policies have created “a national security, humanitarian and public safety disaster at the southwest border,” leading to more than 6 million law enforcement encounters there and about 1.5 million migrants who evaded arrest. 

As a result, Green charged, the United States has experienced more crime, including drugs smuggled in, while putting national security at risk. The chairman said he’s confirmed that some Chinese nationals who entered along the Mexico border and released into the U.S. have ties to the Chinese Communist Party and the People’s Liberation Army.

“This is the height of madness, releasing unvetted individuals from our nation's most dangerous adversaries into our local communities,” Green said. “That's what Secretary Mayorkas is doing.”

Green also accused the Homeland Security chief of being “outright dishonest or misleading” about the situation at the border nearly 80 times.

Mayorkas was not called to testify Wednesday. In a statement to Spectrum News, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said Mayorkas “is proud to advance the noble mission of the Department, support its extraordinary workforce, and serve the American people.”

“The Department will continue to enforce our laws and secure our border, protect the United States from terrorism, and improve our cybersecurity, all while building a safe, orderly, and humane immigration system,” the spokesperson said. “Instead of pointing fingers and pursuing baseless attacks, Congress should work with the Department and pass comprehensive legislation to fix our broken immigration system, which has not been updated in decades.” 

Democrats on the committee also defended Mayorkas. 

Rep. Benny Thompson, D-Miss., pointed to statistics showing that border encounters are down 70% since the Biden administration ended last month the pandemic-era Title 42 policy that allowed for the quick expulsion of migrants. 

To try to stem the flow of migrants, the Biden administration expanded legal pathways to entry and stressed that people who attempted to go around the system would face severe consequences — swift deportation, a five-year ban if they had no legal basis to enter the U.S. and criminal prosecution if they attempted to cross the border again.

Democrats also argued that U.S. has a legal obligation to accept qualified asylum seekers, noting that the entire Western Hemisphere is facing refugee challenges fueled by factors such as violence, corruption, lack of economic opportunity and extreme weather events. 

“Is he [Mayorkas] responsible for the unprecedented gang violence, extortions, assaults in Central America?” Rep. Lou Correa, D-Calif., asked Eleanor Acer, senior director of refugee protection at Human Rights First, who testified at the hearing. “How about for the ongoing crisis in Haiti? The economic instability in Venezuela? Human rights violations in Cuba?”

Acer repeatedly answered no.

Rep. Seth Magaziner, D-R.I., accused Republicans of politicizing the DHS.

“There are common sense bipartisan actions that this committee could be taking up to improve security along the southern border, but instead of advancing smart policies to keep Americans safe, the Republicans have resorted to the type of political theater and Biden bashing that the American people are sick of,” he said. 

Saying it was absurd to accuse Biden and Mayorkas of being derelict in their border duties, Magaziner listed a number of actions the administration has taken, including initiatives to combat human smuggling and trafficking, efforts to disrupt drug trafficking and a increased funding for Customs & Border Protection. 

“But of course, you do not hear House Republicans talking about any of this because it doesn't fit their narrative,” Magaziner said. “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.”

The witnesses called by House Republicans were former acting Homeland Security Director Chad Wolf, former acting Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Joe Edlow and former Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott. 

Together, they and the committee’s GOP members accused the Biden administration of playing a “shell game” with border statistics by omitting certain numbers, including appointments made using the CBP One app, and argued that expanded migrant parole programs are illegal.

Regardless, the situation at the border remains a catastrophe, they said.

“By any objective measure or metric, the U.S. is facing the worst humanitarian and national security crisis along our southern border in our nation's history,” said Wolf, who led DHS under former President Donald Trump. “Today's border secure security system is unrecognizable from the America First policies of the Trump administration or even those in place during previous administrations.”

Said Scott, the Border Patrol chief under both Trump and Biden: “The chaos at our Southwest border and the consequences are a result of actions taken by the Biden administration. … Decades of bipartisan border security improvements were erased on Jan. 20, 2021, when the Biden administration announced actions that were heard around the world as the U.S. borders are now open.”

Those actions, they said, included ending the Trump-era Remain in Mexico policy that required asylum seekers to wait in Mexico for hearings in U.S. immigration court. 

Rep. Mike McCaul, R-Texas, said migrants are abusing the asylum system and blasted the Biden administration for releasing so many into the country. 

“When they're allowed to enter the United States, because we don't have detention space, they are released into our society,” he said. “They're given a notice to appear, and they disappear.”

Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La., who introduced the impeachment articles against Mayorkas, added, “You'd have to be living under a rock in America to not recognize the disintegration of our sovereignty at the southern border over the last two years.”