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Strong blasts DHS secretary for abuse of parole at the border

U.S. Rep. Dale Strong (R-Huntsville) believes the Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has committed impeachable offenses with how he’s handled the parole system at the U.S. southern border.

Strong voted to impeach Mayorkas in February saying, “I look forward to the evidence being presented to the Senate and urge my Senate colleagues to remove Sec. Mayorkas for the harm he has done to the American people.”

The Senate has yet to hold an impeachment trial against the DHS Secretary even though the House impeached him by a 214-213 vote.

Strong said in a recent op-ed in the Washington Examiner that there is plenty of evidence showing Mayorkas is guilty.

“[A]n even greater circumvention of the rule of law is being facilitated through what Mayorkas has continually and falsely called ‘lawful pathways’ of migration,” Strong said. “These efforts include mass parole — meaning that rather than apprehending, detaining, and removing inadmissible aliens, the Biden administration is releasing them into our country en masse.”

The congressman said Mayorkas is not following the law by paroling an “unprecedented” number of illegal immigrants instead of detaining them.

“U.S. immigration law mandates the detention of illegal border crossers and states that parole may only be granted on a ‘case-by-case’ and temporary basis,” he said. “Instead of enforcing this law, Mayorkas has developed numerous mass-parole programs — contrary to the law — to implement the Biden administration’s catch-and-release policies. Many of those released into the interior are functionally here to stay.

“On his watch, DHS has recorded at least 1.7 million parolees — an unprecedented figure. He told the House Judiciary Committee in July that these numbers are consistent with past precedent, but his own Border Patrol agents disagree.”

Strong said these parole programs will only worsen the crisis at the border.

“Mayorkas’ mass parole schemes do nothing but incentivize more illegal immigration,” he said. “Nationwide encounters of inadmissible aliens at ports of entry increased over 100% from fiscal 2022 to fiscal 2023. He knows the consequences of his unlawful actions yet continues to double down on them.”

Every member of Alabama’s Republican congressional delegation joined Strong in voting for Mayorkas to be impeached.

Yaffee is a contributing writer to Yellowhammer News and hosts “The Yaffee Program” weekdays 9-11 a.m. on WVNN. You can follow him on Twitter @Yaffee

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