In the News

WASHINGTON – Majority Whip Tom Emmer today joined CNN This Morning to discuss House Republicans’ articles of impeachment against Secretary Mayorkas and a potential border deal from the Senate.

Click here or above to watch the full interview.

Whip Emmer on Mayorkas impeachment proceedings:

“It’s been a year-long process – very thoughtful and detailed. And you’ve got the head of Homeland Security who is charged legally with securing our southern border. Phil, he’s not only failed to do that, he’s willfully disobeyed existing law which requires that you detain certain individuals. And instead, he’s created this mass ‘catch and release’ program which has resulted in things like in my home state about a year ago, they had an individual on the terrorist watch list come across the border. They had him, and they released him into the country. He was here for a year before he was picked up. He’s a member of al-Shabaab, the terrorist group al-Shabaab. He was picked up in Minneapolis recently. So, the process is moving forward. And I expect the articles will pass out of committee, and then we’ll pass it off the floor.”

Whip Emmer on criticisms of Mayorkas impeachment:

“I think there’s been plenty of due process. You’ve got an individual who’s testified before every other committee in the Senate, in the House, perhaps more than any other cabinet member. And yet he won’t come in and testify in front of the Homeland Security Committee to explain why it is he has literally been violating, willfully violating, the Immigration and Naturalization Act by failing to detain individuals who are coming across our southern border illegally. And there are other legal violations. I have great respect for all of these Constitutional experts. But the facts speak for themselves. And I think what you’ll see coming out of committee now, because I’m assuming those interviews have been taking place before all of the debate, what you’re seeing coming out of committee is I believe they will find that he has willfully disobeyed existing laws. He’s willfully violated or abused and ignored the parole law in this country. That’s why I think, ultimately, he should have resigned long ago. You’ve got 8.3 million people that come across the border under his watch. 1.57 million gotaways. This is outrageous. Remember when Jeh Johnson, who was under the Obama administration, said 1,000 a day was a crisis? This is well beyond that.”

Whip Emmer on a potential Senate border deal:

“The fact is the House passed the strongest border bill in the last 20 years. It would do things like end ‘catch and release.’ It would do things like restore the ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy, reform the broken asylum process, and deal with this parole issue which seems to be way too flexible for the administration because they’re not enforcing it. We did that. The Senate is having discussions. But we don’t have a deal out of the Senate. And what has been leaked out of the Senate suggests things like increasing parole by up to 50,000 people a year. If that’s the case, Phil, it’s going to be really hard for us to get the votes to pass that off the House floor. But we have to see it first.”

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