US Rep. Chip Roy Blasts DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas

U.S. Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) is calling for the impeachment of U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, accusing Mayorkas of lying during a congressional hearing and failing to secure the border.

Roy accused Mayorkas of falsely claiming that DHS held operational control over the border in a congressional hearing on April 28, 2022.  In that hearing, Roy asked Mayorkas to testify under oath if DHS had operational control over the border. After agreeing to answer under oath, Mayorkas maintained that DHS held operational control.

According to the Secure Fence Act of 2006, operational control refers to the “prevention of all unlawful entries into the United States.”

“I believe you want the American people to believe that we have operational control over the border. We very clearly do not,” Roy told Mayorkas during a congressional hearing on Wednesday.

According to Roy, DHS does not have operational control over the border since approximately 5.6 million illegal aliens have entered the U.S., while more than 2 million have been detained and released since Mayorkas assumed office in 2021.

“You lie; it is a perpetual pattern, and real people are impacted by that,” Roy told Mayorkas.

Since Mayorkas took office, 90,000 American fentanyl deaths have occurred; more than 2,000 Texans lost their lives to fentanyl as the U.S. failed to maintain control of the southwest border.

Mayokas’ repeated lies and lack of enforcement have led Gov. Greg Abbott to demand Mayorkas be impeached.

“He’s in charge of homeland security, and he’s made the homeland more insecure than any Homeland Security secretary ever. He needs to be removed,” Abbott said in an interview.

Since Abbott launched Operation Lone Star in 2021, Texas has spent $10 billion on border security in Texas, while the federal government has spent $25 billion on border defense for the United States as a whole.

Abbott has taken unprecedented measures in an attempt to secure the Texas-Mexico border. However, those measures recently fell under federal criticism.

Just last week, the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Texas regarding Abbott’s recently installed marine barriers in the Rio Grande River.

The calls to impeach Mayorkas have increased as the tension on the border between Texas, the U.S., and Mexico reaches new heights.

Matthew DeLaCruz

Matthew DeLaCruz is a Cedar Park native and is a sophomore journalism and mass communications major at Abilene Christian University. Matthew is a summer writing fellow at Texas Scorecard and loves bringing relevant stories to citizens. When he is not writing, you can catch Matthew lifting weights, playing basketball and eating ice cream with his friends.