With a government shutdown looming, 13 Republican senators, led by Utah Sen. Mike Lee and Texas’ pretend cowboy Sen. Ted Cruz, released a letter they said they sent to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell demanding he make a big stink about holding an impeachment trial for Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Lee even posted a copy of the letter with some vaguely legible signatures to his X (formerly Twitter) account. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is expected to dismiss the bogus bit of political theater.
The Republican-led House was able to impeach Mayorkas after one embarrassing failure of an attempt, making it the first time a Cabinet official has been impeached in 150 years. The Senate GOP members making hay out of the impeachment process continue to remind the public how Democratic officials proved (and Republican officials admitted) the entire exercise was disingenuous.
The letter, which was signed by Sens. Mike Lee, Ted Cruz, Eric Schmitt, Rick Scott, Ron Johnson, J.D. Vance, Roger Marshall, Josh Hawley, Mike Braun, Tommy Tuberville, Ted Budd, Cynthia Lummis, and Marsha Blackburn, contains a lot of what we have come to expect from the do-nothing Republican Party. The general pantomime of the GOP around the impeachment of Mayorkas involves an imaginary belief that the GOP is strong on border security. It is fitting that conservative senators like Lee, who voted against the bipartisan border security deal, would also spend their time trying to create a political theater production of impeachment instead of making the hard compromises and decisions needed to get things done.
Senators like Cruz have used their party’s disarray to take shots at current leaders like McConnell. On Sunday, Cruz told Fox News that “if Republican leadership in the Senate doesn’t like the criticism, here’s an opportunity to demonstrate some backbone.” Cruz and Lee are joined by self-promoters like Sen. Josh Hawley, who has had his own public spats with Republican leadership in recent months.
The government is set to shut down on March 1. House Republicans seem unable to chew gum and … chew gum. Senate Republicans who spent many decades in lockstep with McConnell’s leadership seem to have lost the ability to tie their shoes. The Senate is coming off of an 11-day recess. McConnell has not responded to inquiries from media outlets for his response to the letter as of the writing of this story.
Campaign ActionOhhhhh yeah! Democrats kicked ass and then some in Tuesday's special election in New York, so of course we're talking all about it on this week's episode of "The Downballot." Co-hosts David Nir and David Beard explain how Tom Suozzi's win affects the math for Democrats' plan to take back the House, then dive into the seemingly bottomless list of excuses Republicans have been making to handwave their defeat away. The bottom line: Suozzi effectively neutralized attacks on immigration—and abortion is still a huge loser for the GOP.
FIRST ON FOX: Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing a Catholic non-governmental organization operating in the state and wants to have its registration revoked, alleging that it is encouraging illegal immigration and operating a stash house for those entering illegally.
Paxton has sued Annunciation House — a Catholic nonprofit set up in the 1980s — and is seeking to revoke its registration to operate in Texas.
Annunciation House describes itself as a volunteer organization that "offers hospitality to migrants, immigrants, and refugees in El Paso, Texas."
"Rooted in Catholic social teaching, the volunteers of Annunciation House live simply and in community, in the same houses as the guests we serve, who are mostly from Mexico and Central America," the group’s website says. "We also participate in advocacy and education around immigration issues. We seek to be a voice for justice and compassion, especially on behalf of the most marginalized of our society."
But Paxton’s lawsuit accuses the group of "openly and flagrantly violating many provisions of law in a systemic fashion." Specifically, it accuses it of providing shelter to illegal immigrants who have evaded law enforcement, of encouraging illegal immigration, of engaging in human smuggling and of operating a "stash house."
"Annunciation House appears to be engaged in the operation of an illegal stash house by potentially allowing others to use its real estate to engage in human smuggling," the lawsuit says.
Paxton’s office had requested records from the organization to evaluate potential violations of federal law. However, the organization in turn sued the AG’s office, seeking a restraining order and accusing it of making an impossible demand due to its limited volunteer staff and of violating its "constitutional rights of association."
The lawsuit requests that its right to operate in Texas is terminated and also asks the court to appoint a receiver to liquidate its assets.
"The chaos at the southern border has created an environment where NGOs, funded with taxpayer money from the Biden Administration, facilitate astonishing horrors including human smuggling," Paxton said in a statement. "While the federal government perpetuates the lawlessness destroying this country, my office works day in and day out to hold these organizations responsible for worsening illegal immigration."
In a statement, Annunciation House said it "does its work of accompaniment out of the Gospel mandate to welcome the stranger."
"This is no different from the work of schools who enroll migrant children, the clinics and hospitals who care for the needs of their ill, the churches, synagogues, and mosques who welcome their families to join in worship," a spokesperson told Fox News Digital. "For the Attorney General to suddenly attack Annunciation House after forty-six years of service to the poor is simply shameful."
The legal battle comes amid a broader fight between Texas, which has promoted border security and sought to block illegal immigrants entering the U.S., and the federal government, which has embraced the role of NGOs in processing and aiding illegal immigrants and has sought millions in funding from Congress for groups and communities that receive them.
There was a record 2.4 million migrant encounters in fiscal 2023, and December set a record for encounters with more than 301,000 in that month alone. The House last week impeached DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over his handling of the crisis. Articles of impeachment now go to the Senate for a trial.
Fox News' Aubrie Spady contributed to this report.
FIRST ON FOX: Former Vice President Mike Pence's public policy think tank Advancing American Freedom urged congressional leaders on Tuesday to release the government funding agreement as the current temporary spending patch, known as a continuing resolution (CR), will expire the first week of March.
"Three weeks ago, your committees reached a private agreement on the 302(b) allocations for the next fiscal year. Since then, the American people have been kept guessing as to the negotiated funding levels for each of the twelve subcommittee appropriations bills," executive director Paul Teller wrote in a letter to the House and Senate appropriations committees on Tuesday.
House and Senate leaders came together in mid-January to pass a CR to give themselves more time to hash out a deal for the rest of fiscal 2024.
It was the third CR passed since the previous fiscal year ended Sept. 30 and preserved funding for some agencies through March 1 and others through March 8.
Both chambers are currently in recess.
"The American people deserve transparency on the spending levels of their government as Congress looks to pass additional spending bills," Teller told Fox News Digital in a statement. "With another deadline rapidly approaching, the American people and rank-and-file members are kept in the dark as to the true spending levels, and this needs to change. Advancing American Freedom is calling on these numbers to be immediately released to the American public."
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., agreed upon a top-line funding agreement of $1.66 trillion last month. That figure was part of an agreement mandated by the Fiscal Responsibility Act last year, a compromise reached during debt limit talks between President Biden and then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.
"Now, disconcerting rumors are swirling that the 302(b) allocations that were agreed upon blow out the already excessive $1.7 trillion Johnson-Schumer 'cap,' itself built on Speaker Pelosi’s COVID-19 level spending," Teller wrote.
"Although it has become ‘business as usual,’ airdropping an appropriations package on Congress at the last second is no way to govern," he wrote.
MIKE PENCE'S AAF SENDS MEMO TO LAWMAKERS: 'BIDEN DOESN'T SEEM TO WANT ISRAEL TO WIN'
On the Senate floor, only three of the 12 appropriations bills have been passed.
"There isn’t a funding agreement to release," a House appropriations aide told Fox News Digital. "The bills are still being negotiated."
The CR continues funding for four appropriations bills through March 1: Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration; Energy and Water Development; Military Construction, Veterans Affairs; and Transportation, Housing and Urban Development.
Additionally, the CR allocates funding for the remaining eight appropriations bills through March 8: Commerce, Justice, Science; Defense; Financial Services and General Government; Homeland Security; Interior, Environment; Labor, Health and Human Services, Education; Legislative Branch; and State, Foreign Operations.
The aim of having two separate deadlines is to prevent Congress from passing a comprehensive "omnibus" spending bill, a practice widely opposed by Republicans.
However, the staggered approach may not eliminate the possibility of an omnibus as Congress will only have a few days to pass appropriations bills before the current CR expires. If they fail to either extend current funding levels or reach an agreement on new levels, the government could fall into a partial shutdown, with federal programs on pause and thousands of federal workers potentially furloughed.
Fox News' Elizabeth Elkind contributed to this report.
A dramatic increase in Chinese illegal immigration is on track to break records at the southern border, with apprehensions from the communist country in one sector alone already eclipsing fiscal 2021 in just a few days.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) sources tell Fox News that between Saturday and Monday there were 452 Chinese nationals apprehended by Border Patrol in the San Diego Sector alone.
That’s more than the 450 apprehended in fiscal 2021 altogether across the entire southwest border.
The number of Chinese nationals has been increasing since fiscal 2021. In fiscal 2022, numbers increased to more than 2,000 border-wide. In fiscal 2023, that number then surged to more than 24,314.
CHINESE MIGRANTS POURING ACROSS SOUTHERN BORDER SPARK NATIONAL SECURITY CONCERNS
So far in fiscal 2024, which began in October, there have been more than 18,750 encounters by the end of January, meaning that the fiscal year is already on track to exceed last year’s numbers. There were nearly 6,000 encounters in December alone.
The increase in migration from China is an indicator of how global the U.S. border crisis has become. Officials previously said they have encountered migrants from more than 150 countries. Fox News witnessed migrants from countries including Brazil, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Ecuador and China crossing into the U.S. at San Diego this week.
Chinese nationals have quickly become the fastest-growing demographic entering the country illegally. Some officials and Republican lawmakers have raised concerns that single adults entering from the geopolitical rival could pose a national security threat.
Brandon Judd, the president of the National Border Patrol Council, which represents all rank-and-file Border Patrol agents nationwide, told Fox News last week that the majority of the Chinese border crossers are single adult males of military age.
INFLUX OF ILLEGAL CHINESE MIGRANTS THREATENS US TERRITORY; ISLAND MUST SHOW 'STRENGTH OF THE NATION'
"That is a very scary prospect. We know that China does not like us, we know that we are in the crosshairs of China," Judd said.
"And they are exporting so many people to our country, and you have to really fear about that."
"There have been numerous documented instances of Chinese nationals, at the direction of the CCP, engaging in espionage, stealing military and economic secrets," a group of Republican senators warned last year.
The Republican-held House impeached DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for his handling of the migrant crisis. The articles of impeachment now go to the Senate for a trial.
Overall, there have been more than 961,000 migrant encounters this fiscal year after a record-setting 2.4 million in fiscal 2023. December saw a record 301,000 encounters, followed by a sharp drop to 176,000 in January.
Fox News' Aubrie Spady and Michael Dorgan contributed to this report.
Nearly 7.3 million migrants have illegally crossed the southwest border under President Biden's watch, a number greater than the population of 36 individual states, a Fox News analysis finds.
That figure comes from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which has already reported 961,537 border encounters in the current fiscal year, which runs from October through September. If the current pace of illegal immigration does not slow down, fiscal year 2024 will break last year's record of 2,475,669 southwest border encounters — a number that by itself exceeds the population of New Mexico, a border state.
The total number of southwest land border encounters since Biden assumed office in 2021 is 7,298,486, CBP data shows.
That is larger than the population of 36 U.S. states, including Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.
Compared to the largest U.S. states, the 7.3 million number is about 18.7% of California's population of 39 million, 23.9% of the state of Texas and its 31 million residents, 32.3% of the population of Florida and 37.3% of New York. It's more than half the size of Pennsylvania, Illinois and Ohio.
Were the number of illegal immigrants who entered the United States under President Biden gathered together to found a city, it would be the second-largest city in America after New York. And the total does not include an estimated additional 1.8 million known "gotaways" who evaded law enforcement, which would make it bigger than New York.
Taken together, nearly 10 million migrants have crossed into the U.S. illegally during the Biden administration, a record Biden's critics assert could only be achieved by intentionally refusing to enforce the law.
"This unprecedented surge in illegal immigration isn't an accident. It is the result of deliberate policy choices by the Biden administration," said Eric Ruark, Director of Research for Numbers USA, a nonprofit that advocates for immigration restrictions.
The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment.
MIGRANT CRISIS: NOEM SENDS NATIONAL GUARD TO SOUTHERN BORDER'S ‘WARZONE’
Republicans and anti-illegal immigration activists have for years blamed Biden for allowing the current overwhelming surge of migrants by reversing former President Donald Trump's border policies. The Biden administration has denied responsibility for the crisis and pointed to external "push" factors like violence and economic instability in South and Central America as the culprit responsible for vast waves of migration to the U.S.
However, the president's critics say migrants face more of a "pull" factor in the form of job opportunities and government benefits because they know they will not face deportation under Biden's lenient policies.
"The administration has refused to enforce existing immigration law and taken every opportunity to aid and abet illegal border crossings — through policies such as catch-and-release, mass parole, and offering temporary work permits to tens of thousands of foreigners who make dubious claims for asylum," Ruark told Fox News Digital. "In actual effect, the United States government is completing the human smuggling and trafficking process for the Mexican cartels."
Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), said migrants have learned in the last three years that they won't face deportation for entering the country illegally.
"They have sent the signal that if you come to the U.S. illegally, if you abuse the asylum system, you'll be released into the country and allowed to remain here, in most cases given work authorization," Mehlman said. "Even if you neglect to show up for your hearings, the odds of you being removed are negligible. The president claims he doesn't have the authority to enforce our laws. He absolutely does. He is deliberately not enforcing those laws."
LARGE MAJORITY OF ILLEGAL BORDER CROSSING SHIFT TO ARIZONA AND CALIFORNIA, PIVOTING AWAY FROM TEXAS
Biden has called on Congress to pass new laws he claims would let him solve the border crisis. He endorsed a bipartisan deal in the Senate that included an "emergency border authority" to mandate Title 42-style expulsions of migrants when migration levels exceed 5,000 a day over a seven-day rolling average. It would have also limited the window for people to apply for asylum, provided immediate work permits for asylum seekers and funded a massive increase in staffing at the border and more immigration judges.
But conservatives tanked the deal in the Senate after House Republicans declared it a non-starter. They argued the bill would have normalized record-high levels of illegal immigration and said Biden currently has all the authority he needs to reenact Trump's policies and secure the border.
While the debate rages, House Republicans have impeached Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for allegedly refusing to enforce immigration laws. Two impeachment articles advanced against Mayorkas accused him of having "refused to comply with Federal immigration laws" and violating the "public trust."
DHS has criticized the effort as politically motivated and insisted the Biden administration is enforcing the laws on the books.
Biden said that "history will not look kindly on House Republicans for their blatant act of unconstitutional partisanship that has targeted an honorable public servant in order to play petty political games."
Fox News' Bill Melugin, Adam Shaw and Jamie Joseph contributed to this report.
House Republicans are pushing for evidence collected as part of the Justice Department's prosecution of a former Hunter Biden associate.
Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) sent a Tuesday letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland requesting records related to DOJ’s case against Patrick Ho, an official with a Chinese oil and gas company. Ho, whom the duo calls a “close business associate of Hunter Biden,” was later sentenced to prison in the United States on international bribery and money laundering charges.
The House Republicans wrote in their letter, a copy of which was first obtained by POLITICO, that as part of the ongoing impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden “the Committees have determined that there is a particular need to obtain certain materials the Department of Justice (DOJ) obtained during its investigation of” Ho.
The request is a fresh sign that Republicans are probing Hunter Biden’s Chinese business deals as they try to find a still-elusive smoking gun linking actions taken by Joe Biden as vice president or president to his family’s business arrangements.
Republicans want an unreacted copy of an email between Ho and Serbian politician Vuk Jeremić about “an individual that Mr. Jeremic was willing to bring to a dinner” with Ye Jianming, the chair of the Chinese company, after DOJ successfully got the name of the individual redacted during the trial. DOJ requested the step over concerns that the name could “introduce a political dimension to this case.”
The lawmakers also want a copy of Ho’s iPad that DOJ has seized. A spokesperson for the Justice Department confirmed receipt of the letter, but declined to comment further.
It’s hardly the first time either Ho or Jeremic has cropped up in the House Republican investigation. Republicans requested testimony from Jeremic last year, hoping that he could provide details on the redaction.
The Washington Post reported in 2022 on Hunter Biden’s business dealings in China, including an email Jeremic had written to the president’s son about a dinner he was hosting in Washington with Ye Jianming, chair of the Chinese company. While Jeremic invited Hunter Biden to attend, he ultimately was unable to.
Jeremic told The Washington Post at the time that while he knew Hunter Biden and Ye that he was “not involved in their mutual introduction” and found out that they had met through media reports.
The Senate is preparing to quickly dispense with the House GOP's much-touted impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
Republicans across the Capitol crowed about their recommendation that the Senate boot Mayorkas from office in protest of his handling to the southern border — a vote that took them two attempts to pull off. Now that the House is done impeaching, however, some Senate Democrats are predicting that a snoozer will result from all the hype.
“We view it as a stunt,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said of Senate Democrats’ outlook on the Mayorkas impeachment. “I bet the preference is going to be to spend as little time on it as possible so we can focus on [spending], the [national security aid debate] ... and then I think we also want to take up the House's bipartisan tax reform bill.”
Kaine added that, while the structure of any Mayorkas trial is up to leadership, Democrats have tools they can use to shortcut the proceedings right from the start.
“There's different options. Do you do a motion to dismiss? Do you recommit to committee? I don't know what the leadership is going to decide," he said.
A motion to dismiss the articles of impeachment against Mayorkas would not be without precedent. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) attempted to use a motion to dismiss at former President Donald Trump's second impeachment trial, but the vote failed.
Senate Democratic leadership has already laid out some plans for the trial. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s office said House impeachment managers will present the articles of impeachment to the Senate after this week's recess. Senators will be sworn in as jurors the next day and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) will preside over the proceedings.
Schumer himself has called the Mayorkas impeachment a "sham" and insisted "House Republicans failed to present any evidence of anything resembling an impeachable offense."
Senate conservatives are still pushing for more action, though. A group of them sent a letter Tuesday morning urging Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to "ensure that the Senate conducts a proper trial." The letter was signed by 13 Senate Republicans in total.
But that saber-rattling can only go so far. McConnell does not have control over Senate floor proceedings — and plenty of his Republican members have cast their own doubts about the House's rationale for impeaching Mayorkas in the first place.