Key Republican Tells Donors He Will Pursue Impeachment of Mayorkas

WASHINGTON — The Republican chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee promised donors this month that he would produce an impeachment case against the Biden administration’s homeland security chief, Alejandro N. Mayorkas, saying that the secretary’s appearance before the panel this week would be the beginning of his demise.

Representative Mark E. Green told an enthusiastic crowd in his home state of Tennessee last week that his committee would expose Mr. Mayorkas’s “dereliction of duty and his intentional destruction of our country through the open southern border.” He said the panel would deliver charges to the House Judiciary Committee, which handles impeachment proceedings, according to an audio recording of a House Freedom Caucus fund-raiser event obtained by The New York Times.

He said he had a “five-phase plan” for doing so and that the Homeland Security Committee would “put together a packet, and we will hand it to Jim Jordan and let Jim do what Jim does best.”

Mr. Green apparently was referring to Representative Jim Jordan, the Ohio Republican who leads the Judiciary panel. His comments made clear that G.O.P. leaders are serious about their threats to impeach Mr. Mayorkas. He said the plan would start with an appearance by the secretary before his committee on Wednesday.

“On April 19, next week, get the popcorn — Alejandro Mayorkas comes before our committee, and it’s going to be fun,” Mr. Green told the room, adding: “That’ll really be just the beginning for him.”

A spokeswoman for Mr. Green did not respond to requests for comment.

Mr. Green and other Republican leaders have made no secret of their desire to pursue impeachment charges against Mr. Mayorkas. Speaker Kevin McCarthy began threatening to impeach him months before Mr. McCarthy won his gavel. But their ambitions have been limited thus far by the political realities of the House; not every Republican wants to demonize Mr. Mayorkas as solely responsible for the country’s immigration problems, and with a slim majority, party leaders do not yet have the votes to impeach him.

As a result, Mr. Green and other House Republicans in positions of authority have been careful to avoid promising publicly that they would find evidence against Mr. Mayorkas worthy of prosecution. Behind closed doors with core supporters, however, Mr. Green was less cautious, using the issue to whip up the crowd.

Mr. Green appeared at the House Freedom Fund event, billed as a “V.I.P. Reception and Conversation with Conservative Heroes,” alongside Mr. Jordan, Representative Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, Representative Lauren Boebert of Colorado, and Representative Andy Ogles of Tennessee — some of the most vocal firebrands in the House Republican Conference. During his comments, Mr. Green ticked off for the Tennessee donors a short list of border problems for which he said Mr. Mayorkas was responsible.

He referenced recent testimony before his panel by Raul L. Ortiz, the Border Patrol chief, who said five of the nine sectors along the U.S.-Mexico border had experienced “an increase in flow” that “has caused a considerable strain on our resources,” and that drug cartels “control an awful lot on the southern border, south of the United States.”

He also recalled Mr. Ortiz’s testimony that the United States does not have “operational control” of the southern border, which Republicans seized on to accuse Mr. Mayorkas, who had testified that the border is secure, of dishonesty. Mr. Mayorkas explained the apparent discrepancy during a separate hearing last month, telling senators that he was using a different definition of “operational security” than Mr. Ortiz had been referencing, and explaining that the two statements were not in conflict.

Mr. Green nonetheless trumpeted Mr. Ortiz’s words as a kill shot against Mr. Mayorkas, telling the donors that “he’ll see that video a couple of times” during the upcoming hearing before the Homeland Security panel.

Mr. Mayorkas has two appearances on Capitol Hill this week: one before Mr. Green’s panel on Wednesday, and before that, a session with the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee on Tuesday. Both hearings have been scheduled to review the Department of Homeland Security’s budget request for fiscal year 2024.

They come as the Republican House is barreling ahead with what Mr. Green told donors would be “the most conservative border security bill that this Congress has ever seen, or any Congress has ever seen.” The panel is expected to debate that bill next week.

On Wednesday, while Mr. Mayorkas is testifying before the Homeland Security panel, the Judiciary Committee is scheduled to debate a second border security bill aimed at restricting migrant inflows, including by restricting access to asylum.