Seriously, this guy is a piece of work. DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas shrugged off calls for his impeachment on Friday. Earlier this month, Senators Cruz and Graham told him that he is not doing his job and impeachment may be in order after the midterm elections when the House returns to a Republican majority. Mayorkas’s response? Meh.

Mayorkas told the editorial board of the Dallas Morning News that he has a job to do and he’s going to do it. Then he blamed Republicans for the increase in smuggling activity at the border.

“I’ve got a lot of work to do, and I intend to continue to do it. That’s my response,” he said, during a meeting with The Dallas Morning News editorial board.

He added that “the political cry that the border is open” — a common refrain from GOP critics — “is music to the smugglers’ ears, because they take that political rhetoric and they market it” to desperate migrants from Venezuela and other countries.

You can’t make this stuff up. It’s not Republican rhetoric that is to blame here, it’s Joe Biden’s incompetence and his obsession with proving he is more humane than Trump when it comes to illegal immigration. Mayorkas is just repeating the Biden administration’s talking points. If they admit failure, it means that Biden should not have used executive orders during his first day in office to undo Trump’s policies and agreements with Mexico. It means Trump’s approach was the right one. The border was in pretty good shape when he left office and then it quickly went to hell in a hand basket because Biden campaigned on not enforcing deportations, blanket amnesty for all, and no consequences for illegal immigration. He made it clear that all they have to do is get across the border and they will be allowed to stay. So they came. Why wouldn’t they?

Mayorkas counters that the vast majority of drug smuggling takes place at ports of entry. What about the human smuggling? The Biden border crisis is a humanitarian crisis, as well as a national security crisis. The fact is that historically high numbers of illegal immigrants are crossing the border and there is no way DHS or local communities can handle them. They are simply released into the U.S. interior and that seems to be Joe Biden’s plan all along. If it wasn’t his plan, he would have secured the border by now. He’s had almost two years to do it. Biden simply doesn’t care. He has never, ever, been to the southern border. He has no idea of the devastation of the border crisis of his own making. The number of apprehensions totaled over 2 million in fiscal year 2022, which ended in September. Fiscal year 2023 is off to the same horrendous start.

Eight Texas Republicans have co-sponsored a House resolution to impeach Mayorkas, on grounds that he has “presided over a reckless abandonment of border security and immigration enforcement”: Reps. Lance Gooden of Terrell, Pete Sessions of Waco, Louie Gohmert of Tyler, Michael Cloud of Victoria, Chip Roy of Austin, Brian Babin of Woodville and Randy Weber of Friendswood.

Gohmert was first to sign on, in August 2021.

“The rhetoric that I hear of invasion is very troubling,” Mayorkas said, emphasizing that not everyone caught at the border is an “innocent” person seeking job opportunities, but that is the vast majority.

Invasion is a fair word, even if Mayorkas is offended. What else do you call the constant streaming of tens of thousands of illegal immigrants each week? They are breaking U.S. law with their first action. The U.S. has a legal process for immigration and it is being abused and disregarded.

Mayorkas and Biden are not serious people and should not be taken as such.

Calls for the resignation of Mayorkas picked up again after the news that he knew the Border Patrol agents in the Whipgate controversy were innocent of wrongdoing came out. Mayorkas hung them out to dry, as did Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Jen Psaki, and others who didn’t bother to allow the investigation to carry out before they proclaimed the Border Patrol agents guilty and in need of discipline. It was disgusting.

As you might imagine, morale is at all-time lows among law enforcement agents working on the southern border. CBP Commissioner Chris Magnus is under fire from employees of his own department.

Five current administration officials who work with CBP Commissioner Chris Magnus portrayed him as unengaged in his job, saying he often doesn’t attend White House meetings on the situation on the border, badmouths other agencies to colleagues and superiors, and has not built relationships within CBP and across other agencies to address the influx of migrants at the border. They complain he is unfamiliar with some of the operations of CBP and instead is focused primarily on reforming the culture of the Border Patrol, addressing its long list of allegations of racism and violence.

Some of the officials believe Magnus hasn’t prioritized addressing the high number of migrants attempting to cross the border, but instead has continually tried to shift blame to other agencies. As an example, two of the five current administration officials said Magnus brought his boss, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, pages of grievances about Immigration and Customs Enforcement. While CBP is responsible for securing U.S. borders at and between ports of entry, ICE is the agency responsible for arresting and detaining undocumented people within U.S. borders.

We can understand why he was narrowly confirmed by the Senate. He didn’t have much Republican support. There are complaints that Magnus falls asleep in meetings. Magnus, 61, blames that on his multiple sclerosis medication. He was diagnosed with MS about fifteen years ago. Magnus is trying to scapegoat ICE. It sounds like he is more attentive to cultural issues than enforcement of immigration laws.

One former senior White House official said it was noticed among staff how often Magnus sent a deputy to sit in on high-level interagency calls about immigration. One of the current administration officials said Mayorkas, in turn, often relied upon CBP’s deputy commissioner, Troy Miller, or its chief of staff, Nathaniel Kaine, or Border Patrol chief Raul Ortiz for help.

“Operationally he’s not even in the conversation,” said the administration official. “He knows the border, but the ins-and-outs and the size and capabilities of CBP is pretty far outside his remit and understanding how to deal with other parts of the administration.”

Magnus’ focus on reforming the culture of CBP is not unusual for the agency chief. Former commissioner Gil Kerlikowske also prioritized bringing order and discipline to CBP almost a decade ago when he served in the role.

Joe Biden has failed at most of his tasks as president. At the top of the list is hiring personnel. Biden is more interested in checking identity boxes than finding the most qualified people for any given job, though we were promised that in a Biden administration, only the most qualified of people would serve. He said with all his decades in office, he knew how the government should run and would find people who would make government efficient. Chalk that up to just another Biden whopper. The border is not closed, and it is not the fault of Republicans willing to cry foul over the administration’s dereliction of duty.