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Mayorkas impeachment: Reps. Lofgren & Spartz on House vote on DHS secretary
The US House of Representatives is voting on a Republican-led resolution to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over his handling of the immigration crisis on the southern border. On GZERO World, Ian Bremmer sat down with Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) and Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-IN), who both sit on the House Immigration subcommittee, moments before the vote took place for their thoughts on the first impeachment of a cabinet secretary in modern history.
“[The impeachment] has nothing to do with meeting the constitutional standards,” Lofgren, former chair of the Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement, tells Bremmer, “It’s a complete waste of time.”
House Democrats say the vote is unconstitutional and politically motivated, but the GOP, which has a razor-thin three-vote majority in the House, accuse Mayorkas of a “willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law” and beaching public trust.
“I always believe that ultimate responsibility lays [with] the top executive,” GOP Rep. and Ukrainian American Spartz argues, “We need to send the message that can’t allow executives not to do their duty to the public.”
Watch the full interview on GZERO World with Ian Bremmer on public television beginning this Saturday, February 10. Check local listings.
Homeland Security chief Alejandro Mayorkas takes his seat to testify before a Senate hearing on the department's budget request on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., May 26, 2021.
Hard Numbers: Mayorkas impeachment fails, Haley loses Nevada, School shooter’s mom found guilty, Kenyan cult leader charged with child murder
214: House Republicans on Tuesday tried and failed to make Homeland Security chief Alejandro Mayorkas the first Cabinet secretary to be impeached in 148 years – an effort that was tied to one of the most divisive issues in Washington: border security. Four Republican lawmakers went against their party and helped Democrats sink the articles of impeachment against Mayorkas in a 214-216 vote. Congressional Republicans are also moving to sink bipartisan legislation aimed at strengthening border security because Donald Trump warned it could help Democrats in the 2024 election.
26: Nikki Haley was the only major candidate to take part in Nevada's GOP primary and still lost due to Donald Trump supporters choosing the "None of these Candidates" option instead. Haley decided not to campaign in the state, focusing instead on her home state South Carolina, and delegate-rich California. On Thursday, Donald Trump will run unopposed by any major candidate in the state GOP caucus, which will earn him the state's 26 delegates once he wins. To understand why Nevada Republicans voted in a primary AND a caucus this year, read our quick explainer.
4: For the first time, a US parent has been held criminally responsible in connection with a school shooting committed by their child. Jennifer Crumbley on Tuesday was found guilty of four counts of involuntary manslaughter. Her son, Ethan Crumbley, shot and killed four fellow students at Michigan’s Oxford High School in 2021 using a gun gifted to him by his parents just days before (he’s serving a life sentence). James Crumbley, the father, is also facing charges, and his trial is set to begin in March.
191: Paul Nthenge Mackenzie, the leader of a Christian doomsday cult in Kenya, on Tuesday was charged along with 29 other people in the deaths of 191 children – whose bodies were found in mass graves in a forest. Mackenzie – founder and leader of the Good News International Ministry – is accused of convincing his followers to starve themselves and their children to achieve salvation and meet Jesus Christ. He pleaded not guilty. Hundreds of his followers have been found dead, and many others are missing.
Flags of Mexico, United States, and Canada are pictured at a security booth at Zaragoza-Ysleta border crossing bridge in Ciudad Juarez.
US wants Mexico visa restrictions
The US has asked Canada to reintroduce visa requirements for Mexican visitors in an effort to stop the flow of migrants across the northern border. In 2016, Trudeau lifted the visa requirement, which was an irritant in Canadian-Mexican relations. Recently, though, human smugglers have started to use the route for Mexicans who want to enter the United States, taking them on short boat trips from Canada to the US.
US Customs and Border Protection says crossings are on the rise – 1,999 Mexicans were stopped in a six-month period this fiscal year compared to 882 the year before. That’s an increase, but it’s nothing compared to the 738,780 stopped along the southern US border last year.
US Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told CBC that Canada is considering the matter, but a spokesperson for Canada’s Immigration Minister Sean Fraser says the Trudeau government “has no plans to reimpose the visa requirement at this time."
But we don’t expect that to be the end of it, especially with Biden and Trudeau facing mounting pressure over illegal migration in the runup to their respective next elections in 2024 and 2025. Still, for all the chatter, when it comes to border politics, the US-Mexican border drives the agenda much more than the northern one.
Asylum seekers wait for a meal at a migrant camp where social distancing is difficult to practice in Matamoros, Mexico.
Migrants on the move
"We are on pace to encounter more individuals on the southwest border than we have in the last 20 years. We are expelling most single adults and families. We are not expelling unaccompanied children." So said US Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas earlier this week. US Customs and Border Protection reports an average of 565 children traveling alone now crossing the border per day, up from 313 last month.
Who are the migrants? US officials say most people now reaching the US border are adults travelling by themselves, but numbers of both families and unaccompanied children are growing. There are changes in where they're coming from. With exact numbers from border officials, the Washington Post's Nick Miroff reports that the highest number of families is now coming from Honduras, the most unstable country in Central America. Many kids traveling alone come from Guatemala, where the youth population and unemployment are both high and smuggling networks are most fully developed. There are now fewer migrants from El Salvador, where the Nayib Bukele government has made progress against gang violence.
Why the surge? The transition from Donald Trump to Joe Biden in Washington has persuaded some would-be-migrants that a limited window now exists for entry into the US. Human traffickers, short on cash following the migration slowdown of the Trump years and most dangerous months of pandemic, are now eager for more income, and thus reinforcing that message. Making matters more urgent, in November two major hurricanes inflicted severe human and economic damage in Central America, particularly in Honduras.
Taking to the road is always dangerous, especially for young children. Most take this step for the same reasons that others have taken it before them: they hope to find a much better life for themselves and their families away from the violence, corruption, and poverty all around them. In particular, research published last year by Doctors Without Borders found that more than 75 percent of Central American migrants traveling with children toward the US border reported leaving their home countries due to threats of violence, including forced recruitment by gangs.
Countries along the route are struggling to cope. In January, under pressure from the US and Mexican governments, Guatemalan police turned back a caravan of thousands of Hondurans. Mexico's President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has warned that migrants remain vulnerable to his country's violent drug gangs, which have a history of kidnapping, sexual assault, human trafficking, and forced gang initiation of migrants. In addition, the surge in numbers of migrants entering Mexico headed north comes at a moment when COVID-19 makes sheltering migrants much more complicated.
Those who reach the US border may not find what they're hoping for. The US isn't ready for them, and the Biden administration, under intense criticism from Republicans for enabling this surge by promising to loosen Trump administration border restrictions, isn't welcoming them. Under the current policy, single adults and families are being refused entry as part of US efforts to contain COVID-19. "I can say quite clearly don't come," Biden has said to the migrants. "We're in the process of getting set up… Don't leave your town or city or community."
Mayorkas has promised a "safe, legal and orderly immigration system," including by streamlining the process by which asylum applications are filed and considered, but that will take time and prove much easier said than done. Last week, the Biden administration announced it would begin processing backlogged asylum applications for about 25,000 people that had stalled under the Trump administration's Remain in Mexico policy, but that process won't move quickly either.
Bottom line: Life on the road is hard and getting harder, but that isn't stopping larger numbers of desperate people from taking the risk in hopes of applying for asylum. Every government along their path is scrambling to prepare.
Advice from former Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson to the incoming Cabinet head
If former Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson could give incoming Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas advice, what would it be? "Well, first I would say, 'Ali, I'm glad it's you, not me.'" His conversation with Ian Bremmer was part of the latest episode of GZERO World.