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House Oversight Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) has issued another subpoena to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, this time demanding records from Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
This subpoena follows the GOP-led House’s impeachment of Mayorkas last month and is the third one Jordan has sent to the DHS chief in recent months. Previously, in December, Jordan subpoenaed documents related to “violent” illegal aliens, and in February, he demanded information about border security in Texas.
The Ohio Republican has also been seeking information on the illegal immigrant suspected of killing University of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley.
“As a part of its oversight efforts, we conducted transcribed interviews with several Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials. During these transcribed interviews, the ICE witnesses were unable to answer certain questions about data, documents, and communications related to the Biden Administration’s immigration policies,” Jordan wrote in a cover letter accompanying his latest subpoena.
“On November 2, 2023, the Committee requested that the Department provide the information that the ICE witnesses could not provide during their transcribed interviews. To date, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has failed to fully comply with our requests,” the GOP lawmaker added.
Jordan stated that the committee staff made multiple attempts to inquire about the status of the requested information in the months following DHS’s missed deadline.
On two occasions, the agency’s staff initially provided “only a partial answer” and later shared links to some public data and information that did not fulfill the panel’s requirements, the chairman added.
“Although we appreciate that DHS has provided some limited data, your failure to produce all the requested documents and information prevents the Committee from fulfilling its constitutional oversight obligations,” Jordan wrote.
The chairman pointed out that the Oversight Committee has jurisdiction over federal immigration law and suggested that the information requested could influence legislative measures. These potential actions might include “reforming Alternatives to Detention, increasing penalties for aliens who abscond from ICE, and enhancing ICE’s tracking, detention, and communications standards for aliens on the terrorist watchlist.”
Federal agents who spoke to the Washington Examiner after the House voted to impeach Mayorkas on Feb. 13 say the job has been horrendous since he was confirmed by the Democrat-controlled Senate in February 2021.
Some of them also fear that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) will move to dismiss the two articles before a trial can even begin.
“I want to see our government take action!!” a California-based agent wrote in a text message to the outlet when asked about the impeachment. “It took them long enough.”
Another California-based federal law enforcement agent said that Mayorkas, who has led the DHS for three years, ought to be held accountable for the chaos at the border.
“Yes, I would like to see a trial,” said the agent, who has been with the Border Patrol for 20 years. “There are no consequences for smugglers right now. We have so many [people who fail to yield to agents] and smugglers loading [vehicles with illegal immigrants] right on the border.”
The same agent told the Examiner that prosecution rates for the number of smuggling cases weren’t comparable, which meant that few smugglers faced the consequences after arrest.
“Smuggling is at the highest. They know we won’t prosecute them,” the second agent said. “He let it get out of control. He is responsible as head of this agency.”
The outlet noted further:
Since Mayorkas took office as President Joe Biden’s pick to lead the department, more than 8 million non-U.S. citizens have been encountered at the border. The large majority of immigrants entered the country illegally. Seeking asylum is not required to be released into the United States, as millions have been.
That said, Mayorkas works for Biden and is enacting the president’s policies. On Biden’s first day in office, he ended or reversed nearly all of former President Donald Trump’s strict border enforcement policies like “Remain in Mexico” and construction of the wall. Biden’s administration also eventually ended Title 42.
