- Sep 28, 2010
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"But while Republicans have spent ample time arguing that violation of immigration laws alone is grounds for impeachment, they haven’t devoted as much time to breaking down how Mayorkas has done so.
The bulk of the GOP argument fixates on language in the law that says migrants “shall” be detained while they await removal from the country.
It’s a standard that has never been met — the U.S. didn’t have enough beds to do so even in 1996, when the statute was updated.
It would be a logistical impossibility to hold in detention every migrant who crosses the border, and no administration has done so."
"Republicans taking the word “shall” as “an absolute command from which the secretary of Homeland Security cannot deviate is a radical departure from the way that every presidential administration, including Republican presidential administrations, have interpreted that exact language,” César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández, a law professor at Ohio State University, told The Hill.
“The inevitable conflict is that there is a law that Congress does not equip the department to enforce and so the leadership of the department has to decide who to prioritize … Politicians disagree over exactly who to prioritize, but fundamentally, one administration after another is simply choosing who to go after given the reality that they cannot target everyone.”
The bulk of the GOP argument fixates on language in the law that says migrants “shall” be detained while they await removal from the country.
It’s a standard that has never been met — the U.S. didn’t have enough beds to do so even in 1996, when the statute was updated.
It would be a logistical impossibility to hold in detention every migrant who crosses the border, and no administration has done so."
Legal experts counter GOP claims that Mayorkas broke the law
Republicans plan to take a historic vote Tuesday to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and have focused their central argument on claims he has broken immigration law. But a rev…
thehill.com
"Republicans taking the word “shall” as “an absolute command from which the secretary of Homeland Security cannot deviate is a radical departure from the way that every presidential administration, including Republican presidential administrations, have interpreted that exact language,” César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández, a law professor at Ohio State University, told The Hill.
“The inevitable conflict is that there is a law that Congress does not equip the department to enforce and so the leadership of the department has to decide who to prioritize … Politicians disagree over exactly who to prioritize, but fundamentally, one administration after another is simply choosing who to go after given the reality that they cannot target everyone.”