House Oversight GOP to feature Border Patrol agents in February hearing

Republicans will turn their focus to the U.S.-Mexico border with a House Oversight and Accountability Committee hearing featuring four Border Patrol agents next month.

Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) announced the hearing on Thursday, to take place sometime during the week of Feb. 6. Border Patrol agents Jason Owens, Gregory Bovino, Gloria Chavez and Patricia McGurk-Daniel were invited to testify.

“The Biden Administration’s deliberate actions are fueling human smuggling, stimulating drug cartel operations, enabling deadly drugs such as fentanyl to flow into American communities, and encouraging illegal immigrants to flout U.S. immigration laws,” Comer charged in a statement. “Republicans will hold the Biden Administration accountable for this ongoing humanitarian, national security, and public health crisis that has turned every town into a border town.”

Comer separately sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Tuesday requesting documents and communications detailing accounting of illegal border crossings, border security plans, changes in certain migration policies, interior enforcement actions and several other matters.

The hearing is the second that the high-profile panel has scheduled. A hearing on waste, fraud and abuse in COVID-19 relief programs is set for Feb. 1.

A focus on the border, which Comer has long said will be a top priority for his committee, comes as several House Republicans are renewing their calls to impeach Mayorkas over his handling of the border. Any impeachment actions would be pursued by the House Judiciary Committee rather than the Oversight panel. 

Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has called on Mayorkas to resign, but has stopped short of supporting impeachment.

“We can investigate, and then that investigation could lead to an impeachment inquiry. I don’t predetermine because I’ll never use impeachment for political purposes,” McCarthy told reporters on Monday.