Mayorkas appeared before the House Homeland Security committee to testify on President Bidens 2025 budget request. The secretary stressed the need for the house to pass the senates bipartisan bill as he faced criticism from republicans through his handling of the crisis at the southern border. The hearing ended shortly before the house delivered impeachment articles against the secretary to the senate. This is about three hours. [inaudible conversations] the committee will come to order. Without objection the committee may recess at any point. Good morning, secretary mayorkas, and thank you for joining the committees budget that you and President Biden put forth the department of Homeland Security. March 1 the department celebrated its 21st anniversary, and i want to thank the Public Servants throughout hhs that dedicate their lives to securing the homeland. This work is vital to the nations safety and security. Mr. Secretary, when you took the oath of office use for two, quote, support and defend the constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic. As well as faithfully discharge the duties of the office, and of quote. The immigration and nationality act further makes clear that you have, quote, a duty to control and guard the borders, the boundaries and borders. During your three years as secretary you failed to fulfill this effort. You refuse to comply with the laws in congress and breached the public trust. You facilitated and encouraged record levels of ilLegal Immigration since your first day in office and weve witnessed the devastating results of the agenda. Ive shared this before but i feel its necessary to repeat you abolish working policies and following the statements of your boss and his campaign trail, promises to improperly grant asylum. As a result people from all over the world tested the system and came and released in the mass waves began. This increased demand the cartels took advantage. Regulated it to overwhelmingly crossing sides of the border and responded by moving the Border Patrol agents from the border, marshals from the air, customs agents from airports to process and release the Record Numbers of people and issue guidance to Law Enforcement to violate laws passed by this coequal branch of congress under removal. With the border wide open and the border have trafficked drugs in humans into the country that has led to the death of thousands, billions of dollars lost and created the crisis you finally acknowledged in recent testimony. Even your counterpart the fbi director Christopher Ray said theres no way to ensure they are not a part of the got a ways that entered the country on your watch and the massive increase in the nationals encountered in 2003 adds to the threats we face at home as you chose not to enforce the law. Your refusal to follow the law is contemptible. The disregard of the request from this coequal branch of government in pursuit of the constitutional duty to conduct oversight, your false statements of the body end of the American People and issuance of guidance to the employees and telling them to violate laws passed by Congress Shows a disregard for the constitution you swore an oath to uphold. Your directives remain unchanged and youve doubled down. The budget request reflects this abstinence and fails to take seriously the crises threatened in the National Security interest especially the wide open borders for example you request a 1. 45 billion cut in the spending budget from what congress enacted last year that includes a 245 million cut for the Border Security operations budget. And as you did in last years budget you proposed a 4. 7 billion slush fund while the border contingency of fund that wouldnt be used to secure the border would help release quickly into the interior. Might i remind you of the founders on the executive branch if the founders wanted the executive branch it would never have detailed the funding duties of this body and the division of power. That is treading on the constitution. The fund will not solve the humanitarian crisis that you created. It would facilitate while trying to hide the truth from the American People. The Budget Proposal provides 350 Border Patrol agents and the act provided enough funding for aid times that number. Your budget requests funding for 43,000 isa beds by comparison in fy 2021 the Previous Administration requested 60,000 at the time when illegal crossings were at their lowest in decades. The targets to remove illegal aliens were abysmal in 2020 amended the covid19 pandemic removed 185,800 while in fiscal year 19 and removal exceeded 267,000. Last year despite more than 3. 2 million inadmissible encounters of the border you yoe accomplished around 143,000 removals and in this budget youre only targeting 125,000. At that rate it would take 16 years to remove the roughly 2 million got a ways on your watch and nothing of the more than 9 million encounters more of whom have also been released. Meanwhile the communist Party Continues to carry out multifaceted espionage influences against the United States. The regime has shown if we give an inch they will take a mile. You have given them all 1,951 miles of the southern border. While we are appalled by your handling of the Border Security issues, the committee does work with the department on key issues. Passed february the administration issued an executive order for more stringent cybersecurity reports and emphasis and we support these initiatives and your proposal also recognizes the workforce is vital to the protection of the homeland strengthening the Cyber Workforce pipeline would be one of the Top Priorities for the remainder of the year and its imperative the 419 fulltime employees you requested for Cyber SecurityInfrastructure Security Agency are utilized to that end we must ensure the authorities and resources aligned with this mission. The world is only growing more dangerous. The adversaries in china, russia, iran and elsewhere are expanding capabilities to undermine our interests even within our homeland. While parts of the budget request deal with some of those threats, the request as a whole fails to meet the important time we have. I now recognize the Ranking Member of the gentleman from mississippi mr. Thompson for his Opening Statement. Thank you very much, mr. Chairman. Good morning. I want to begin by thanking the secretary for being here today. Your testimony before the committee despite the unfounded extreme attacks against you speaks to the character, integrity and commitment to the department of Homeland Security, its mission and its people. What seems like a split screen, this morning the committee is upholding its annual hearing on the department of Homeland Securitys budget request. This afternoon, republican members will deliver to the senate their baseless articles of impeachment, and perhaps the most politicized partisan stunned this committee has ever engaged in. From the moment the secretary took office in february, 2021, members of the oversight unfairly targeted them for their own political gain. He would bring an end impeachment case against the secretary mayorkas and he told his contributors to get the popcorn and promised its going to be fine. According to an internal republican memo, republicans had already scheduled the vote to impeach the secretary prior to holding a hearing. This entire thing is a sham from the start. The socalled impeachment hearings that provided not even a shred of evidence of an Impeachable Offense, the republicans shortcircuited their own and refused to let democrats offer amendments in their rush to the house floor and advance the vote the secretary whose mother survived the holocaust was referred to using language the committee had included in the antisemitic terms. I insert in the record an article describing this incident. At the end Impeachment Vote failed and another embarrassing miscalculation of Health Republican leadership on a second try hand at their articles across the finish line. Over two months later, the republicans are still transmitting the impeachment articles to the senate and waited until they thought the timing was politically advantageous. So much for the claims about the border. They wanted to have a dog and pony show into the senate showing yet again what deeply unserious people they are. The senate should dismiss the baseless impeachment articles about the delay. To make matters worse in their thezeal to impeach secretary mayorkas, the republicans have shorted the responsibility to conduct meaningful oversight and advance its Critical Mission has not yet hailed a single oversight hearing on cybersecurity, domestic terrorism, aviation security, vast preparedness and response or Election Security this congress. Shocking for the Committee Born out of 9 11 attacks which had a reputation for rising above the partisan politics to help secure the homeland on behalf of the American People. The committees legislative work has suffered. By the time last congress, the committee reported 49 and that was during a global pandemic. The congress by contrast the committee has reported fewer than half that number. This is what happens when republicans make someone who espouses Political Violence and antisemitic tropes and want to defend the fbi to the de facto leader. This is what happens when republicans prioritize over politics that serve the American People. It is chaos and miss function by design. If you dont believe me, look how long it took to elect a speaker we did nothing but vote after vote and to add insult to injury, democrats were accused of killing things down and we are the minority policy. If republicans are looking for someone to hold accountable, they should start looking in the mirror. Secretary mayorkas has remained steadfast and continues to do his job across the departments many critical Homeland SecurityMissions IncludingBorder Security and immigration enforcement. Hes used a full range of authorities at his disposal and stretched the resources provided by congress to secure the border. Under his leadership the department has removed record levels of migrants, detained more people than congress had provided funding for and prevented unprecedented amounts of fentanyl from entering the communities. Republicans talk a lot about supporting border securities, but you know, talk is cheap. If republicans were serious about improving conditions along the border, they would provide the department the funding necessary to do so. Instead, the majority, a dozen in fact, including the chairman voted no on providing dhs the funds it needs to secure the border. Republicans have also refused to consider the Border Security supplemental funding the department requested months ago starving dhs and its frontline for the money they need to carry out their duties. Americans arent fooled by these republican political gains. They understand that when you invest your resources if republicans value Border Security i want to hear secretary mayorkas talk about the administrations budget request for the department of Homeland Security. I want to ask how we can support the departments mission and its 260,000 dedicated personnel. That is our responsibility and has one i know our democratic members take seriously. Mr. Chairman, the committee can do better. It has done better under the leadership from the chairman of both parties. I look forward to returning to better days on the committee. Mr. Chair, i yield back. The gentleman yields. Other members are reminded Opening Statements may be submitted for the record. We are pleased to have secretary mayorkas here and i would ask the secretary to rise and raise his right hand. Do you solemnly swear the testimony you will give before the committee on the United States house of representatives be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you god . Let the record reflect the secretary answered in the affirmative. Thank you. You may be seated. I would like to introduce the witness. A secretary mayorkas is the seventh secretary of Homeland Security of which he serves february, 2021. He served as the deputy secretary and the director of uscis. Let me welcome and recognize mro summarize his Opening Statement. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member, members of the committee come every day the 268,000 members of the department of Homeland Security carry out the mission to protect the safety and security of the American People protect our shores, skies, cyberspace, leaders based on fentanyl and other deadly drugs from entering the country. They limited the response to maritime emergency as we speak they are engaged in the response to the tragic bridge collapse in baltimore. They help rebuild after Natural Disasters and combat the scourges of Human Trafficking and online Child Sexual Exploitation and so much more. All this despite the insufficient budget. The Public Servants of dhs deserve full support the end of the American People deserve the results of fully resourced can deliver. The opportunities outlined in the fiscal year 2025 budget or dhs are critical to meeting those goals and i welcome the opportunity to discuss this proposed budget and highlight some of the proposals with you today. When our department was founded in the wake of 9 11, the threat of terrorism against the visibility targets was our primary concern. That threat persists, but we also now confront the terrorism related threat of radicalized offenders in small groups already resident here in the United States. The budget provides for an 80 million increase to the departments Nonprofit Security Grant Program. Additional funds for targeted violence into terrorism Prevention Grants dhs can better help communities prevent tragedies. As loan actors and nationstates increasingly target the Critical Infrastructure and data, the president s budget provides the needed funding for cybersecurity and resiliency. Fentanyl is raking tragedy across the country. He dhs has more elicit fentanyl and more individuals arrested for fentanyl related crimes than the last two fiscal years and in the previous five combined. The president s budget includes critical funding to advance the strategy including funds from nonintrusive inspection technologies and targeted operations. During the time when the world including our hemisphere is experiencing the greatest displacement of people since world war ii, dhs helped the border enforcement and maximizing the available resources authorities and in the last 11 months we have removed or returned more than 630,000 individuals that didnt have a legal basis ban every fiscal year since 2013. The president s budget would further expand these efforts and provides funding for hiring enforcement personnel and bolstering the refugee process. The immigration system however is fundamentally broken. Only congress can fix it. Congress hasnt updated the enforcement walls since 1996, 28 years ago. And only congress can deliver for more Border Patrol agents, xylem officers and immigration judges, facilities and technologies. Our administration worked closely with a Bipartisan Group of senators to Reach Agreement on a National Security supplemental package that would make the system changes that are badly needed and give them the tools and resources needed to meet todays Border Security challenges. We remain ready to work with you to pass this bipartisan agreement. Finally, extreme weather continues to devastate communities. Last year fema responded to more than 100 to disasters. The budget provides 22. 7 billion to the Community Leaders to help survivors in the aftermath of major disasters and additional funds to the strategies that will save lives and taxpayer money in the decades to come. It is essential to the success across the mission sets is the departments ability to recruit and maintain a worldclass workforce. In addition to the front lane workforce i mentioned, the president s budget includes 1. 5 billion for the