G.O.P. Immigration Agenda Faces Stiff Odds in Divided Home

WASHINGTON — Home Republicans, intent on urgent forward with their high marketing campaign guarantees on immigration, turned a listening to with Homeland Safety Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas into an impeachment-focused interrogation and superior restrictive border safety laws on Wednesday, regardless of important G.O.P. opposition that might kill each initiatives on the Home ground.

“You haven’t secured our borders — and Mr. Secretary, I imagine you’ve got carried out so deliberately,” Consultant Mark E. Inexperienced, Republican of Tennessee and the Homeland Safety Committee’s chairman, instructed Mr. Mayorkas throughout a listening to earlier than his panel. Republicans on the Judiciary Committee lobbed related accusations at Democrats to justify a sequence of recent border insurance policies that will additional prohibit migrants’ skill to hunt asylum.

Democrats have denounced the Republicans’ parallel efforts to oust Mr. Mayorkas and cross laws to clamp down on unlawful border crossings as “political theater,” notably since there is no such thing as a viable avenue for both to realize traction within the Democrat-led Senate.

However the extra quick impediment dealing with Home G.O.P. leaders lies inside their very own ranks: There usually are not sufficient Republican members but on board with both impeachment proceedings in opposition to Mr. Mayorkas or the border safety laws to keep away from doubtlessly embarrassing defeats on the Home ground.

The border invoice “has an extended option to go earlier than it hits prime time,” Consultant Tony Gonzales, Republican of Texas, instructed reporters this week, warning that it might be foolhardy for G.O.P. leaders to press forward with immigration laws that stood no likelihood of passing Congress, given the get together’s slim majority within the Home.

“On this Congress, 5 votes is 100,” he stated.

Immigration is a politically potent problem for many Republicans, who’ve seized on the document ranges of unlawful migration on the southern border; the concurrent spikes in incidents of kid labor, as documented by The New York Occasions; and the Biden administration’s resolution to stop development of the border wall as proof of malfeasance, notably by Mr. Mayorkas. Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Republican of California, has threatened the secretary with potential impeachment, and earlier this month, Mr. Inexperienced instructed Republican donors that he would produce a case in opposition to Mr. Mayorkas exhibiting his “dereliction of responsibility.”

On the middle of the G.O.P.’s criticisms of Mr. Mayorkas is an assertion that he lied beneath oath when testifying to a congressional panel in 2022 that the border was safe.

To buttress that time, Republicans have drawn on testimony from Chief Raul L. Ortiz of the Border Patrol, who instructed the homeland safety panel final month that the federal government didn’t have operational management of the border, beneath a statutory normal of “the prevention of all illegal entries into america.”

Mr. Mayorkas has testified that neither he nor the Homeland Safety Division use that definition, and that his and Mr. Ortiz’s statements had been thus not in battle. On Wednesday, he doubled down on his evaluation, testifying that “the border is safe — and we’re working day and evening to make it safer.”

Democrats leaped on the testimony, chastising Republicans for attempting to make an impeachment case out of a political disagreement.

“There may be completely nothing that I’ve seen right here immediately that quantities to a false assertion beneath oath,” stated Consultant Dan Goldman of New York, a former prosecutor who led the Home Democrats’ first impeachment case in opposition to Donald Trump.

A small however doubtlessly pivotal group of Home Republicans has additionally expressed unease about eradicating Mr. Mayorkas over what these lawmakers assume is essentially a coverage dispute, not an abuse of workplace. Such Republicans might make or break an impeachment vote, because the G.O.P. can’t afford to lose greater than 4 votes on any problem.

“That is actually Joe Biden’s insurance policies, greater than Mayorkas, and are we going to question the president on this? No,” Consultant Don Bacon, Republican of Nebraska, stated in an interview.

There’s a related simmering mutiny on the margins of the G.O.P. on the subject of efforts to cross border safety payments that committee leaders have pledged to placed on the Home ground by early subsequent month.

The Judiciary Committee’s invoice, which superior out of the panel Wednesday evening on a largely party-line vote, has prompted objections from some Republicans over a requirement that employers use a piece eligibility program referred to as E-Confirm. This has alarmed advocates of the farming trade, which depends closely on undocumented immigrant labor. E-Confirm checks paperwork offered by new hires in opposition to Social Safety Administration and Division of Homeland Safety data.

It’s essential to “have a authorized pathway for folks to return in and be capable of work,” stated Consultant Dan Newhouse, Republican of Washington State, himself a farmer, in an interview. He famous that Congress must authorize new immigrant visas alongside mandating E-Confirm to keep away from a devastating blow to the agricultural sector.

Some border-state Republicans like Mr. Gonzales have additionally warned in opposition to severely proscribing authorized pathways into america.

“We’re in opposition to the chaos, however we’re a bunch that’s in assist of authorized immigration,” he stated this week.