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Floor Speech

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Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam President, earlier this month, House Republicans impeached Secretary Mayorkas because the Homeland Security Secretary refuses to carry out his constitutional duty of securing the homeland.

More than 9 million illegal immigrants, including 1.7 million known ``got-aways,'' have entered our country under the Biden administration. Now, this number is larger than the population of 39 States. At the same time, hundreds of individuals on the Terrorist Watchlist have been caught on the southern border, including 58 since the start of fiscal year 2024. Just in January, there were more than 176,000 illegal crossings along the southern border. This is the worst January on record. Yet, under Secretary Mayorkas and President Biden, Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported just 142,000 people in all of 2023. That is less than 5 percent of illegal crossings.

There is no doubt that this administration has abused both our asylum and our parole systems, but unlike asylum--you have parole, which is granted by DHS for different reasons, and President Biden has abused his parole authority to usher in millions of migrants who are unknown to us and who receive both public benefits and work authorizations.

One thing is clear: The parole system is just another way for the Biden administration to circumvent congressional authority and make illegal immigrants legal.

Over the course of four Presidents--go back and look at the years from 1983 to 2003--the average yearly total for all paroles was no more than 150,000, and on average, the Obama and Trump administrations paroled just 5,600 migrants per year. There is a contrast here. In 2022, Joe Biden paroled nearly 800,000 migrants into the country, and in fiscal year 2023, the Biden administration paroled approximately 1.2 million migrants. That is more than 200 times the number that President Obama and President Trump paroled into this country. This administration is abusing the parole system and that authority.

This administration's open border agenda is already having tragic consequences. Last week, an illegal immigrant in Georgia was arrested for allegedly murdering Laken Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student, while she went for a jog on the University of Georgia's campus. The suspect should never have been allowed to set foot in America. Yet the Biden administration paroled him. They paroled him into this country after he illegally crossed our border in 2022.

There is no doubt that Secretary Mayorkas has breached the public trust by making illegal immigration legal, but according to recent reports, Majority Leader Schumer is looking for any way he can to prevent a Senate trial when the House transmits the Articles of Impeachment on Secretary Mayorkas to this Chamber. By tabling the Articles of Impeachment, Democrats would be abandoning our core constitutional duty to hold an impeachment trial.

The American people suffer through this administration's border crisis every single day, and they deserve an open debate about whether Secretary Mayorkas, who has done so much to cause this national security and humanitarian catastrophe, is fit to hold public office. Based on everything we have seen over the last 3 years, Secretary Mayorkas is not fit for office, and if this Chamber upholds its constitutional duty, I will vote to convict him.

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