House Republicans Back Down on Mayorkas Appearance, Instead 'Demand' Written Testimony

On Wednesday, the House Homeland Security Committee Chair Mark Green (R-TN) "demanded" written testimony from Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, apparently instead of having the Secretary testify in person.

The Wednesday letter comes after Mayorkas’s office said he was unable to meet Green’s demand for testimony that came just two weeks ahead of the slated Thursday hearing, noting that the secretary would be hosting a delegation from Mexico to discuss immigration issues.
While Mayorkas’s office asked to find another time, Green’s letter characterized the response as “declin[ing] to appear.”
“Since you continue to decline to come in person, I invite you to submit written testimony for the January 18th hearing record, so that our Committee Members may hear from you directly,” Green wrote in the letter, first reported by Punchbowl News.

This is, to put it bluntly, a cop-out.

Secretary Mayorkas' entire tenure has been marked with willful neglect of the massive problems on our southern border. He has refused to enforce federal laws on immigration and has ordered the Border Patrol to stand aside and let illegals flood into the country.

'Face the Nation' Tries to Run Cover for Mayorkas on Border, Speaker Johnson Is Having None of It

Alejandro Mayorkas should be subpoenaed and, if necessary, dragged into the House by U.S. Marshals serving that subpoena. It's not like he hasn't testified before; but this time, he faces impeachment.

Mayorkas appeared before the panel in November as part of the annual worldwide threats hearing and in April for a DHS budget hearing. He has testified before Congress more than any other Biden Cabinet official.
But Green has said the secretary has failed to respond to past invitations for testimony, including letters from August and September.
Green said during an interview on Fox News in late December that he would kick off a series of impeachment hearings for Mayorkas, making his formal request for Mayorkas’s appearance in early January. Committees organizing testimony from Cabinet officials often reach out to arrange it several weeks or even months in advance.

Secretary Mayorkas faces impeachment because he is either 1) astonishingly incompetent or 2) deliberately hamstringing efforts to bring the oozing sore that is our southern border under control. It's hard to see any other explanation for his management of border security; it's hard to see any other explanation for the Biden administration's handling of, well, everything.

Allowing him to offer a carefully crafted, focus-group-edited "written testimony" is tantamount to giving him a pass.

Alejandro Mayorkas' portfolio is Homeland Security. His job is, in large part, to enforce immigration law, to control our borders, and to ensure that we know who is entering the United States, what their backgrounds are, why they are coming here, and what they intend to do. In this, he has utterly failed. In this, he has ordered his subordinates to ignore the law. He has earned this impeachment proceeding, and he should be compelled, as the law demands, to appear before the House Homeland Security Committee to testify in person and on camera, so the American people can watch him account for his malfeasance.