House holds second hearing on impeachment of Alejandro Mayorkas

Jan. 18 (UPI) -- The House on Thursday started its second hearing connected with Republican efforts to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

Witnesses for the Homeland Security Committee included Tammy Nobles, whose daughter was killed by a member of the M-13 gang, and constitutional law professor Deborah Pearlstein.

House GOP committee members will try to use their testimony to demonstrate how Mayorkas' actions have affected people living near the border or otherwise affected the record flow of migrants crossing the U.S. southern border.

In written testimony, Nobles said in 2022, an MS-13 gang member raped and murdered her daughter while robbing her of $6. The suspect was found to be in the country illegally.

"If we had stricter border policies, my daughter would still be alive today," Nobles said. "Nothing will bring my daughter back or fix the pain of not having her here, but I want to prevent this from happening to anyone else's child," Nobles said.

Pearlstein said while impeaching Mayorkas won't change the policies of the Biden administration, it remains one of their strongest weapons to send a message to the White House that changes need to be made.

The White House said on Thursday that efforts to impeach Mayorkas were unconstitutional and their efforts would be better served by working in a bipartisan fashion to immigration reform.

"Legal scholars and historians from across the political spectrum agree: House Republicans' latest impeachment effort fails to meet any constitutional or legal standard," said Ian Sams, the White House oversights spokesman.

"It's well past time for Republicans to drop this baseless political stunt and work with the president on real solutions to address the challenges we face."

On Wednesday, House Republicans passed a resolution denouncing Biden's border policies. The resolution included 14 House Democrats who sided with the GOP. The resolution called on Biden to change what they called "open border" rules.

In the first impeachment hearing earlier this month, Republicans argued that Mayorkas failed the enforce immigration laws and uphold his duties, which they claimed qualified him to be impeached.

Democrats have pushed back, while acknowledging the bordercrossing are high, they accuse Republicans of wanted to use it as a political issuerather than solving the problem.