(Headline USA) President-to-be Joe Biden’s far-fetched hopes of quick confirmation of his nominee to lead the Department of Homeland Security have been blocked by a Republican senator.
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said Tuesday that he would block a procedural move to bypass full committee consideration of the nomination of Alejandro Mayorkas to lead DHS.
Mayorkas, one of Biden’s first announced picks, drew immediate concern due to his past statements advocating for radical open-border policies.
Biden has claimed that he will not immediately seek reversals of some of President Donald Trump’s successful immigration deterrents and has floated the idea of an eight-year path to citizenship.
But he has also pledged mass amnesty for millions of illegal aliens currently living in the US as caravans have begun, once again, to gather at the border.
Sen. Tom Cotton earlier in the week warned not to be fooled by the new administration’s overtures of border-control, which may offer a “fig leaf” of security to mask the true agenda of widespread amnesty.
The move from Hawley means the Mayorkas confirmation must go to the full Senate and there’s little chance he can be confirmed as Biden takes office Wednesday.
Hawley said he made the move because Mayorkas, in his confirmation hearing, would not commit to spending the $1.4 billion appropriated to expand the border wall with Mexico.
Biden said he would halt future construction, and Mayorkas said he would have to determine how the law requires DHS to spend the money.
Hawley also said Mayorkas did not “adequately” explain how he would enforce border security.
Hawley, one of President Donald Trump’s staunchest congressional allies, has under intense attack from Democrats after becoming the first of a dozen senators to support the House GOP-led challenge of the Electoral College votes on Jan. 6.
Despite their having reflexively challenged all the Republican presidential victories of the past two decades, Democrats speciously sought to blame Hawley and others for helping to incite the insurrection that breached the US Capitol that day.
A number of Biden’s other Cabinet-level selections went before the Senate on Tuesday and appeared to be en route to a swifter confirmation process.
Among them was Antony Blinken, Biden’s nominee for secretary of State, who largely praised Trump’s handling of China with a few exceptions in areas such as climate change.
Blinken, however, raised eyebrows due to his recent role as managing director of the Penn Biden Center at the University of Pennsylvania, which appears to have been funded largely through anonymous Chinese investors.
Biden’s own ties to China through the investments of his son Hunter and other family members became a major point of contention during the campaign after the unethical business deals were revealed in files on Hunter’s abandoned laptop.
After one such deal suggested a 10% equity share would be put in escrow for “the big guy,” Trump asked Biden point blank during one of the two presidential debates: “Are you the big guy?”
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
