Congressman Glenn Ivey (D-MD) joined Forbes Newsroom to react to Tuesday’s Homeland Security Committee hearing, which ended in a vote in favor of sending articles of impeachment against DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to the entire House.
"I thought that the Republicans were going to be much more serious about something like this,” the Maryland Democrat told Forbes. “Impeachment is one of the highest powers that the Constitution gives to the House of Representatives, so I thought that it would be treated with the solemnity and gravity that it deserves. But, it really wasn't – they were just going through the motions.”
Ivey doesn’t believe that Mayorkas’ actions deserve to be classified as high crimes or misdemeanors – the basis of an impeachment.
“You need Congress to step in to give the secretary and the president the tools that they need to address these problems, and the resources to actually have enough places to hold the people as they come across, enough judges to hear the cases, enough border patrol agents to defend the border.”
Ivey also discussed the bipartisan Senate border bill still being hammered out, but already opposed by many House Republicans, some Senate Republicans, and former President Trump.
“[House Republicans are] making a lot of excuses about all of a sudden why they don't want to move forward with legislation – although they've been demanding fixes,” Ivey says. “I've only been in Congress for a year, but almost since day one when I got here, they were pounding on the table about it. Now, when the dog finally catches the bus, they don't know what to do with it.”
Ivey went a step further, expressing he believes this is a political stunt by Republicans so that the border remains a hot button issue for the 2024 election.
"We don't have to worry about what's going on behind the curtain. [Republicans] have drawn it back so we can take a clear look at it."
Watch the full conversation above.