WATCH: Xenophobia Ruled the Day in Mayorkas Impeachment
Also: Despite Republican bloviating, Schumer had signaled many times that he intended to deal with Mayorkas' impeachment 'expeditiously'
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer had said several times that he wanted to deal with Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas' impeachment quickly and decisively. Despite that, Republicans accused him and Senate Democrats of pushing to table it.
Meanwhile, Senate Republicans couldn’t resist invoking xenophobic language as they attempted to make their case for impeaching Mayorkas.
Schumer spoke Tuesday morning on the impeachment of Mayorkas and instructed the Senate about how they will proceed so they can address the issue as expeditiously as possible.
Later, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) accused Schumer of refusing to hear the case against Secretary Mayorkas.
Sen. Marsha Blackburn went hard at Schumer and like her Republican colleagues, argued that the Majority Leader is conspiring with Democrats to table the impeachment of Mayorkas.
Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) also chimed in to accuse Schumer and Democrats of something that wasn’t happening.
Xenophobia
Meanwhile, Republicans couldn’t refrain from dehumanizing migrants while criminalizing them. It should come as no surprise to hear Republicans toe the party line and blame migrants for everything that ails the United States.
In Sen. Roger Marshall’s (R-KS) effort to justify Mayorkas’s impeachment, he claimed immigration left the U.S. as the ‘shell of a nation’ that it once was.
Sen. Ron Johnson used a chart and out-of-context ‘encounters’ numbers to drive his case against the Biden administration’s immigration policies and Mayorkas’ alleged mismanagement of immigration at the southern border. Johnson went so far as to invoke old anti-immigrant tropes to suggest all migrants and asylum-seekers are criminals.
In the process of making the case against Mayorkas, Sen. Blackburn went on an anti-immigrant screed where she connected migrants and asylum-seekers to everything cartels, criminals, and smugglers do.
Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) attempted to link violent crime, human trafficking, and terrorism with migrants despite immigrants committing far less crime than U.S.-born citizens. Meanwhile, he tried to link immigration to Israel. (WHAT?)
And of course, Sen. Tuberville took a page right out of the Republican xenophobia playbook in framing migrants and asylum-seekers as violent criminals and terrorists.
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