Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Thursday faced intense questioning from House Republicans about security along the U.S.-Mexico border, with one member even suggesting Mayorkas may have committed treason.

“Many of my constituents have asked me whether you will be impeached when Republicans gain control next year,” Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., said to Mayorkas, during a House Judiciary Committee hearing. “They don't believe that you've committed a high crime, and they don't believe that you've committed a misdemeanor. My constituents want you impeached because they believe you've committed treason. They believe you're a traitor. They compare you to Benedict Arnold. "

“I was at an event this past weekend, and a lady approached me and asked me if you felt any shame for what you've done to this country. My question for you, Secretary Mayorkas, is very simple: Would you please answer that lady's question? Are you ashamed for what you've done to this country?”

Visibly angry, Mayorkas said Buck’s remarks were “profoundly offensive on so many different levels, in so many different regards.”

“I won't ask you for an apology,” the Homeland Security secretary said. “I am incredibly proud of my service to this country. … I am immensely proud to work alongside the selfless, dedicated and talented 250,000 personnel of the Department of Homeland Security in the service of the American people to secure our homeland, to secure them and to secure our values.”

A common theme among Republicans in the hearing was that Mayorkas and President Joe Biden have intentionally weakened border security, leading to issues such as crime spikes; more drugs, including fentanyl, on streets; jobs filled by undocumented workers; and taxpayer money spent to educate and provide health care to people in the country illegally. 

“President Biden and Secretary Mayorkas want illegal immigration,” said Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, the committee’s top Republican. “They want illegal migrants to come stay and never go home.”

There were more than 221,000 border encounters in March, bringing the fiscal year total 1.06 million — an 86% year compared to this point last year, which far exceeded the 2019 total under former President Donald Trump. 

There have been nearly 2.5 million border encounters since Biden took office last January. Republicans say that those figures say that the Biden administration is weak on border security, but the White House counters that the number of apprehensions means that the Border Patrol is strong and is doing its job properly.

“Hundreds of thousands of others that we didn't catch — the got-aways — have also entered our country, and the secretary says the border is secure,” Jordan said. “ … If that's a secure border, then you are completely, completely out of touch with the American people.”

Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., the committee’s chairman, argued the border statistics are skewed because the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention health order known as Title 42, which allows the U.S. to immediately expel illegal migrants during the pandemic, has no penalty for attempted border crossings, leading to the recidivism rate quadrupling. 

Mayorkas said the U.S. turns back migrants who don’t claim to have a legal right to be in the country, namely seeking asylum. In defending the government for allowing some migrants to enter while being placed in immigration enforcement proceedings, Mayorkas said his department is simply following laws passed by Congress governing asylum requests. 

He said his department has limited resources and called for Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform, which Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., candidly said was “very unlikely to happen.”

Mayorkas also repeatedly blamed Trump administration policies for decimating the legal immigration system, including bringing the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services agency to the brink of bankruptcy. 

“We inherited a broken and dismantled system that is already under strain,” Mayorkas said. “It is not built to manage the current levels and types of migratory flows. Only Congress can fix this. 

“Yet we have effectively managed an unprecedented number of noncitizens seeking to enter the United States, and interdicted more drugs and disrupted more smuggling operations than ever before,” he added. 

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., fired back at Mayorkas for blaming previous administrations.

“Was the system you say that was broken, did it represent less people coming over the border illegally and being admitted than today?” Issa asked.

“Yes, sir,” Mayorkas answered. “The number of encounters has increased.”

“I'd be the first to say that since the 1990s, the system for legal immigration has needed reform, and it's overdue,” Issa said. “But there were no laws changed in 2004, (’05, ’06, ’07) — the many years leading up to the Biden administration. And yet we clearly have a huge influx of people.”

Republicans also argued that ending Title 42 would only lead to more people flooding the border.

Mayorkas stressed DHS spent months developing a six-part plan to address that. On Monday, a judge granted a temporary restraining order to stop the Biden administration from lifting Title 42 on May 23, as it had planned.

Issa, however, accused the administration of already ordering “a clandestine ending of Title 42.” 

The congressman claimed a Customs and Border Protection agent-in-charge told him recently that agents were ordered to bring in migrants in Mexico previously denied under Title 42 to be processed in order to clear the backlog by May 23.  

Mayorkas called Issa’s accusation “factually incorrect.”