SAUNDERS: GOP impeachment stunts and bad Biden border policy
WASHINGTON — The problem with the Homeland Security Committee’s vote to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is simple: It was a stunt. It they impeach, it’ll be a bigger stunt.
The Democratic Senate won’t convict President Joe Biden’s point man on the border. So the exercise is a waste of energy and resources, a piece of theatrics meant to convince GOP voters that the Republicans they sent to Washington are doing something, even if they’re not.
It is painful to watch a once-mighty political party turn failure into a virtue, but that’s where we are.
As it is, the mess at the Southwest border is on Biden more than Mayorkas. As a candidate in the Democratic primary in 2019, Biden told the world’s would-be migrants, “If you want to flee and you are fleeing oppression, then come.”
They did come, by the millions and fully aware that they didn’t really have to be “fleeing oppression;” as long as migrants said they were experiencing “credible fear” of persecution, they could stay and work for years.
On his first day in office, Biden signed several executive orders to revoke policies implemented under former President Donald Trump. According to the Office of Homeland Security Statistics, there have been at least 6.3 million migrant encounters since Biden took the oath of office in 2021.
Public sentiment has shifted and so has Biden. Now he talks as if his big problem is that he can’t bolster the border without Congress. Tuesday, as he was heading for Marine One, the president told reporters, “I’ve done all I can do. Just give me the power. I’ve asked from the very day I got into office. Give me the Border Patrol. Give me the people — give me the people, the judges. Give me the people who can stop this and make it work right.”
At the Mayorkas impeachment hearing, several Democrats spoke to the same dishonest effect — which was galling given that Democrats controlled the White House, Senate and House during Biden’s first two years in office.
Has Biden forgotten that?
“Why didn’t you fix it?” Committee Chairman Mark Green rhetorically asked Democrats who put the border mess on the GOP. But he didn’t leave them time to reply.
This Mayorkas impeachment gambit fails because the grounds offered by House Republicans are bogus. Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the ranking committee Democrat, likened the exercise to “a process akin to throwing spaghetti at a wall.”
The two articles of impeachment charged Mayorkas with “willfully and systemically” refusing to comply with federal immigration laws and “breaching the public trust.” Former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff responded in The Wall Street Journal, “Political and policy disagreements aren’t impeachable offenses.”
You don’t like the policy, elect someone different in November. Policy disputes should be settled every four years when citizens vote for president.
It’s impossible to look at this stunt and not see Trump’s imprint. He has energized a voter base that sees virtue in losing partisan battles rather than winning what they can get in a divided government.
I’m so seasoned I remember when elected politicians saved their fodder for important battles they could win. Such pols still exist, but they stand in the shadows of showboats who just want to get their mugs on cable news.
Contact Review-Journal Washington columnist Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@reviewjournal.com. Follow @debrajsaunders on X.