Rep. Anthony D'Esposito, R-N.Y., made his case for Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas' impeachment, speaking to Fox News Digital ahead of a House committee hearing Wednesday, when attorneys general for Montana, Oklahoma and Missouri are expected to testify on how record numbers of migrants pouring into the U.S. pose a national security threat.
D'Esposito, who sits on the House Homeland Security committee, told Fox News Digital that the hearing comes after a year of investigations, rejecting the argument of some Democrats, including that of Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., and others who claim the Republican-led Mayorkas impeachment probe is merely a "policy dispute" and is politically motivated.
"This isn't something that was rushed into. It's not something that is politically motivated. This is something that, especially for me as someone who spent a career in the NYPD, most of it as an investigator, I am proud of the work that the Homeland Security Committee has done over the last 12 months," D'Esposito said.
"This has become not a Democrat issue, not a Republican issue. This has become an issue for people who care about the safety of the United States of America," he continued. "This has become an issue for people who care about their quality of life. This is an issue about people who have watched the cities and places that they've grown up and loved and loved to visit become destroyed at the hands of Secretary Mayorkas."
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Fox News Digital reached out to the Department of Homeland Security for comment on D'Esposito's remarks, but they did not immediately respond.
During a presidential election year and amid heightened tensions in the Middle East, D'Esposito argued that the Mayorkas impeachment hearings are crucial to national security.
"We've heard the numbers. You know, over 3 million people have come into this country since Joe Biden has taken office. We're estimating that there are hundreds of thousands of known gotaways. These are people that we know that have come across the southern border, we just don't know where they are, what they're doing, or who they're associating with," D'Esposito said. "Think about the number of individuals who have crossed that we don't know about."
"There is no question that there are people that have come across this border that are on the known terror watch list that, again, we don't know where they are, we don't know where they're residing. We don't know who they're working with. We don't know the criminal enterprises that they are associating with," he said. "When you talk to local law enforcement agencies, whether it's in my district or across the country, from the smaller departments to the bigger ones, one of their biggest concerns is the national security threat that this migrant issue is plaguing on their jurisdiction. And it's not about, you know, if there's going to be another terrorist attack, unfortunately, it's about when there's going to be another terrorist attack."
Wednesday's hearing, titled, "Havoc In The Heartland: How Secretary Mayorkas’ Failed Leadership Has Impacted The States," comes days after sources told Fox News that Mayorkas admitted during a private meeting with Border Patrol in Eagle Pass, Texas, on Monday that the current rate of release for illegal immigrants apprehended at the southern border is "above 85%."
"Secretary Mayorkas' job is to keep our homeland safe and protect our homeland. And when you tell us that [more than] 80% of the people are just being released into the United States of America with really no plan of that process of asylum, that's a concern," D'Esposito said. "That is in addition to the other issues that are plaguing our country, whether it's China, whether it's Russia, whether it is the conflicts in the Middle East and the terrorist attacks that have been committed by Hamas against Israel and the Israeli people and our Jewish friends. I mean, this has become a time [when] it seems that it's combustible here. As the committee who was put into place after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, I mean, this committee was put into place for the purpose of protecting the United States of America and the people who live here against all enemies, foreign and domestic. And that's what we are doing."
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Sources also told Fox News that between Dec. 1 and Dec, 31, 2023, more than 302,000 migrants were documented attempting to cross the U.S. southern border – representing the highest total for a single month ever recorded and also the first time that monthly migrant encounters have exceeded 300,000.
D'Esposito argued that the United States is "not as safe as it should be and is certainly less safe" because of Mayorkas "following the direction of the failed policies of Joe Biden."
"Sometimes people are putting their lives in the hands of the cartels, the cartels who have actually the control of the southern border, not the American government, not Homeland Security, and certainly not Secretary Mayorkas," D'Esposito said, arguing that the last time Mayorkas appeared before the Homeland Security Committee, he tried to negotiate the definition of what it means to have operational control of the southern border but then turned around and admitted he has heard from U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials that there is no control.
"He's lying on behalf of the president," D’Esposito claimed. "We can look back at the last 50 years. Are there issues with immigration? Yeah, but we are breaking records in the administration of Joe Biden. We are breaking records under the reign of Secretary Mayorkas. And none of those records are ones that we want to set. They are ones of the most people coming across our southern border, the most known gotaways, the most people on the terror watch list."
On Tuesday, Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., went to the Senate floor calling for a vote of no confidence against Mayorkas for "negligence and gross mismanagement" of the southern border. Over the past three years, Marshall charged that 300,000 Americans have died "due to the drugs trafficked into our homeland" and the border crisis has cost American taxpayers $500 billion per year and "becomes more dangerous by the day, as terrorists, Chinese nationalists and over 1.7 million got-a-ways exploit our border at a rate higher than we’ve ever seen before."
As chair of the House Subcommittee on Emergency Management and Technology, D'Esposito said he has heard testimonies over the past 12 months about how detrimental the migrant influx has been to public safety, including fire service, law enforcement, prosecutors and emergency management. He noted how Andrew Ansbro, president of the FDNY Uniformed Firefighters Association, told lawmakers that the manning of firehouses in New York City is now being decreased due to migrant crisis-driven budget cuts. The NYPD, D'Esposito said, is also considering reducing new academy classes because the department "can't afford it." Additionally, along the southern border, sheriffs have testified to the committee how their jails are over capacity.