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PHARR, Texas Inside a college classroom barely six miles from the United States border with Mexico, House Republicans this month orchestrated the made-for-TV moment they had traveled here for, getting a top immigration official to concede that the government has yet to stop migrants from crossing into the country without authorization.

No sir, Raul L. Ortiz, the U.S. Border Patrol chief, told G.O.P. members of the Homeland Security Committee when asked whether the government had operational control of the border.

The answer might seem obvious at a time when several tens of thousands of migrants are presenting themselves at the border each month, but to Republicans, who have made attacking the Biden administration on immigration a top priority and impeaching Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary, an ironclad vow it was worth a 1,500-mile trip from Washington.

Republicans gloated about Mr. Ortizs statement, which was seemingly at odds with testimony Mr. Mayorkas gave to another congressional panel last year, and conservative media outlets played it on a loop. Though the government has long lacked a consistent definition of what makes the border secure, Representative Mark E. Green, Republican of Tennessee and chairman of the panel, seized on the apparent discrepancy nonetheless, pledging on Fox News to interview every border sector chief to investigate whether or not Mayorkas lied.

It was the kind of spectacle that Republicans have been trying to create since they won control of the House, promising to scrutinize what they claim is a border crisis created by lax enforcement by President Biden and Mr. Mayorkas. Over the past two months, Republicans from at least four committees and subcommittees have sent delegations to the border, pouring taxpayer dollars into three field hearings, among other ventures, in efforts to draw attention to their message and generate media coverage that propels their narrative.

During the ride-along patrols held before these congressional excursions, Republicans have struggled to produce visual evidence of the crisis. Last month, Judiciary Committee members saw zero apprehensions in Yuma, Ariz, prompting ridicule from Democrats, who have been boycotting the trips. Republicans on the Homeland Security panel reported seeing just one this month near Pharr.

Yet the lack of physical proof has not deterred Republicans from laying blame for the countrys border challenges squarely at the feet of Mr. Mayorkas, who is expected to field more Republican attacks when he testifies on Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

This secretary of D.H.S. wants nothing more than to flood the country with people, Mr. Green said at his committees session this month. He said the rise in border crossings, the growth of cartels and the domestic fentanyl epidemic were all because of the decisions, because of the incompetence and the dishonesty of Mr. Mayorkas.

Just a few miles from where Republicans met, the reality on the ground at the border was far different from the one presented at the field hearing.

After reaching a peak of 250,000 in December, the number of encounters between officials and migrants at the southern border has begun to decline, falling by about 40 percent in January, and holding steady at those levels through February. Homeland security officials, including Mr. Ortiz, have credited a number of deterrence initiatives, including new projects to beef up border infrastructure, stepped-up interdictions and an uptick in flights sending migrants back to their home countries.

We dont hear like theyre crossing as often as they were; its very, very slow, said Lourdes Gonzalez. Ms. Gonzalez runs a small shelter in a ramshackle neighborhood in Reynosa, a city on the Mexican side of the border from Pharr, that caters to migrants with medical and trauma conditions. The shelter is one in a network of facilities serving people who have made the journey to the U.S.-Mexico line, only to end up, as she calls it, stuck.

All the people that we have right now, they have been here for already several months, she added.

The slowed pace has not quieted Republican criticism. They often cite the total number of encounters between migrants and border agents since Mr. Biden took office 4.7 million and the 1.3 million presumed got-aways, border crossers whom officials failed to apprehend. Republicans say those figures far exceed the totals under President Donald J. Trump.

This is an incredible increase, and it is not by mistake or accident, said Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, arguing that Mr. Mayorkas ought to be impeached for his failure as secretary of homeland security to do his job to protect our country.

The G.O.P.s message has largely ignored what aid workers cite as the main reason border encounters are down: the rollout of a new policy requiring migrants to secure appointments at points of entry through an app called CBP One.

At almost every shelter in Reynosa, life stops each morning as the migrants, positioning themselves for a Wi-Fi signal, race to upload documents and photos to the app and nab appointments before they fill up, usually within minutes.

For most, it is a daily exercise in frustration. Kati, a young woman who fled Honduras and survived assault and torture in Reynosa, said she spends hours every day trying unsuccessfully to get the app to work. It can feel like Im in a cage, said Kati, who declined to give her last name.

While the Biden administration has been fine-tuning the app, aid workers who support it in concept are voicing mounting concerns about how it has been rolled out. They warn that cartels are finding new ways of exploiting waiting migrants, such as demanding money from those who must travel between ports of entry to make their appointments and funneling that money into the worsening drug trade.

Some report that children are being turned into unaccompanied minors, thanks to problems with the app that forced some families to either split up or lose their chance to cross. And as more migrants are forced to wait, advocates worry that those in encampments like Camp Rio in Reynosa, where people live under tattered tarps next to an open dirt plot of human waste, will become even more vulnerable to predation; smugglers are still kidnapping and trafficking people across the Rio Grande in significant, if reduced, numbers.

But during the hearing, Republicans did not focus on the problems with the app, which allows migrants to apply for exemptions to pandemic-era immigration restrictions, instead portraying it as a tool for bringing bad actors into the country.

Whoever fills it out just automatically gets parole when they show up at a crossing site, Mr. Green said of CBP One. He asserted without evidence that a recent episode of frustrated migrants trying to flood a port of entry in El Paso had been a diversionary attack from cartels trying to sneak fentanyl and the nefarious folks into the country.

Democrats say the Republican approach to such issues is part of why they have boycotted the border trips, dismissing them as craven efforts to score political points by putting on a show.

Theyre not actually interested in solutions, said Representative Pramila Jayapal of Washington, who led a separate delegation of Democrats from the Judiciary Committee to the same general area of the border several days after the Republicans departed. The problem is we need other legal pathways for people to come in, and that means we really need processing capability."

Republicans have said they are willing to talk about increasing funding for the Department of Homeland Security, but their main goal has been to target Mr. Mayorkas, whom they accuse of both mismanaging the resources at his disposal and being negligent in asking Congress for the necessary increases to his departments budget.

He either lied to Congress or hes incompetent, and both of those are not good, Mr. Green said of Mr. Mayorkas, calling the discrepancy between his and Mr. Ortizs assessments of the border a big first step toward making a case for impeachment.

But there was little real difference between their statements. In declaring the border to be secure, Mr. Mayorkas has often relied on variations of a standard the Border Patrol defined in 2007 as the ability to detect, respond and interdict border penetrations in areas deemed as high priority. Mr. Ortiz, however, was using the statutory definition, displayed on a placard behind Mr. Green at the hearing: the prevention of all unlawful entries into the United States.

The Department of Homeland Security has defended its handling of the challenges, arguing that the Biden administration inherited what a spokeswoman called a dismantled immigration system and has faced unprecedented migration.

Instead of pointing fingers and trying to score political points by pursuing a baseless and reckless impeachment, Congress should work on legislative solutions for our broken immigration system, which it has not updated in over 40 years, said the spokeswoman, Mia Ehrenberg.

As the debate persists, problems at the border are evolving. In just a few weeks, the Biden administration is poised to institute more stringent policies to replace the pandemic-era restrictions, which expire in May. At that point, many migrant advocates worry the scale of human suffering at the border will get worse.

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Targeting Mayorkas, G.O.P. Takes Its Immigration Message to the Border - The New York Times

WASHINGTON House Republicans plan to deliver a subpoena to Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday for classified cables related to the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Rep. Mike McCaul, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told The Associated Press on Monday that he had spoken with Blinken earlier in the day when he was notified the agency would not be turning over a so-called dissent cable written by diplomats at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul shortly before the August 2021 withdrawal.

We have made multiple good faith attempts to find common ground so we could see this critical piece of information, McCaul, R-Texas, said in a statement. Unfortunately, Secretary Blinken has refused to provide the Dissent Cable and his response to the cable, forcing me to issue my first subpoena as chairman of this committee.

The July 2021 communication warned Blinken about the potential fall of Kabul via a special dissent channel, which allows State Department officials to issue warnings or express contrarian views directly to senior agency officials, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal.

The effort to force the release of the cable is thelatest in a series by McCauland otherHouse Republicansto hold the Biden administration accountable for what they have called a stunning failure of leadership after Taliban forces seized the Afghan capital, Kabul, far more rapidly than U.S. intelligence had foreseen as American forces pulled out.

Kabuls fall turned the Wests withdrawal into a rout, with Kabuls airport the center of a desperate air evacuation guarded by U.S. forces temporarily deployed for the task. A single explosive device that day killed at least 170 Afghan civilians and 13 American service members.

McCaul made the Afghanistan-related document requests in January, upon becoming chairman of the committee, but he faced pushback from the department as he pursued his investigation into the withdrawal.

State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel told reporters Monday that while he recognizes the importance and the keen interest in this cable, it would be a rare move for any secretary to turn over those documents to Congress.

It is a unique way for anyone in the department to speak truth to power as they see it without fear or favor. And they do it by the regulations we have established for these cables in a privileged and confidential way, Patel said. Its vital to us that we preserve the integrity of that process and of that channel.

Since the Dissent Channel was created in 1971, in part to address U.S. diplomats concerns over the Vietnam War, the State Department has held communications closely. Nearly all such cables are classified to protect the integrity of the process and the identities of dissenting Foreign Service officers. They are not generally intended for public consumption, however, some have been leaked to the press, often by their authors.

According to the National Security Archives at George Washington University, at least 123 Dissent Channel cables have been sent since 1971. The vast majority of those have remained classified and the State Department has long objected to efforts to force their release.

The basic contents of some Dissent Channel cables have become public, including in the Afghanistan withdrawal case. One of its authors was given an award for Constructive Dissent in 2022 by the union that represents U.S. diplomats.

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House Republicans to subpoena Blinken over Afghanistan dissent cable - MarketWatch

Former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan had recently announced that he is not running for president on the GOP ticket after openly flirting with a bid. | Scott Eisen/Getty Images

Two years ago, top Republicans in Washington aggressively tried and failed to recruit then-Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan to run for the Senate. Now theyre testing the waters once more.

Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), chair of the Senate GOPs campaign arm, called Hogan earlier this month, according to a GOP operative familiar with the conversation.

The two connected in what the operative described as a talk opening a channel. But during his chat with Daines, Hogan made it clear that his eye is not currently on the Senate.

The governor reiterated that he has never been interested in the Senate, the source told POLITICO.

A prominent moderate and anti-Trump Republican, Hogan had recently announced that he is not running for president on the GOP ticket after openly flirting with a bid. That raised questions about what type of political future he imagined for himself: whether it be a run for the Senate or an independent campaign for the White House, which he has not ruled out.

Daines and Hogan spoke a few days after Hogan announced hed forgo a Republican presidential run. Hogan, a popular politician in Maryland, was term-limited and ended his governorship at the beginning of this year.

In the wake of the GOPs midterm losses in 2022, Daines has decided to wade into primaries in hopes of nominating quality Senate candidates. He has sought to lure former hedge fund CEO Dave McCormick into the race for Senate in Pennsylvania. Senate Republicans hope Gov. Jim Justice jumps into the contest in West Virginia as well.

Though Hogan would be a prized recruit, Maryland is by no means a must-win state for Republicans as they seek to flip the Senate chamber. There are several more promising targets, with Democratic incumbents running in Republican-leaning states.

One reason that political insiders are watching Marylands Senate race is that many expect Sen. Ben Cardin, who is 79, to retire. Cardin said in January that he is undecided on a re-election bid. As of the end of last year, he only had $1 million on hand, according to campaign finance filings.

GOP officials went to great lengths to try to persuade Hogan to run for the Senate in 2022 against the states other Senator: Democrat Chris Van Hollen. They tapped Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnells wife, Elaine Chao, and moderate Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) to reel him in.

But Hogan ultimately decided against it, saying at the time that I just didnt see myself being a U.S. senator.

Hogan declined through an aide to provide a comment for this story. The National Republican Senatorial Committee did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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Top Republicans are trying to woo Larry Hogan (again). He's still not ... - POLITICO

This story was updated March 24, 2023 at 8:45 a.m. to correct the name of the representative who addressed a proposed constitutional amendment.

The support of several Republican House lawmakers Thursday gave Democrats wins on significant abortion bills.

By fairly wide margins, members voted to remove criminal and civil penalties from the states 24-week abortion ban and to prohibit the state from further restricting access to an abortion.

Legislation repealing the 24-week ban ended in a 192-192 tie, with five Republicans supporting repeal. The bill was tabled and is likely to stay there; un-tabling it requires a two-thirds vote moving forward.

And two bills that would have further restricted access to an abortion failed, again because Republicans joined Democrats in voting them down.

House Majority Leader Jason Osborne, an Auburn Republican, issued a statement immediately after the votes, calling Democrats support for all three bills radical.

While it is easy for extremist Democrats to use heated rhetoric to try to advance their radical agenda, the fact of the matter is that public opinion is not on their side, Osborne said.

His statement did not acknowledge the impact made by the Republicans who voted with Democrats. The Houses near even party divide of 201 Republicans and 197 Democrats has made daily attendance and every vote all the more critical this session.

Osborne argued that polling has shown strong support for abortion rights in New Hampshire but also support for restrictions. Our current law satisfies and represents the majority of Granite Staters views on abortion. Todays votes prove the Republicans are not the extremists on this issue.

Abortion rights supporters will face a tougher fight when the bills reach the Senate, where Republicans have a 14-10 majority.

Gov. Chris Sununus office did not immediately return a message asking if he would sign the bills if they reach his desk. While campaigning for his fourth term, Sununu said he supported repealing penalties for violating the law, which include up to seven years in prison and a fine of up to $100,000.

Rep. Dan Wolf, a Newbury Republican who helped add a fatal fetal anomaly exception to the abortion law last session, was the prime sponsor of this years bill to repeal the laws penalties. That effort, House Bill 224, passed 199-185 on Thursday, with the help of 16 Republicans.

The states abortion law allows an abortion after 24 weeks in limited circumstances: when a baby has a fetal anomaly that it is unlikely to survive or when continuing the pregnancy endangers a mothers life.

Medical providers, including Dr. Ilana Cass, chairwoman of obstetrics and gynecology at Dartmouth Health, told lawmakers that abortions at or after 24 weeks are rare. But they are also complicated, providers say, because a fatal fetal anomaly may be discovered shortly before 24 weeks, giving a provider and family little time to decide whether to terminate the pregnancy.

At an hearing earlier this year, Cass told lawmakers that threats of prison time and fines in such complicated situations have dissuaded providers from choosing to practice in New Hampshire.

Speaking on the House floor Thursday, Wolf reminded House members of Cass testimony, arguing that fewer providers mean fewer options for patients.

Wolf said his daughter was in the last days of her pregnancy in northern New Hampshire when she felt something was wrong. She made it to the hospital within an hour, enough time for medical staff to deliver her baby by an emergency Cesarean section.

The baby was born with its umbilical cord wrapped around its neck four times, Wolf said, The baby survived because she didnt have to drive an hour to Dartmouth or an hour and a half to Boston. We cannot allow the decline in good medical services to put our daughters at risk.

Rep. Bob Lynn, a Windham Republican, challenged arguments about the penalties severity, saying providers must know their decisions violate the law.

There is no doubt that doctors often are required to deal with complicated cases and to make difficult decisions, he said. But the requirement of engaging in knowingly unlawful conduct affords health care providers substantial protection against being prosecuted for mere errors in judgment, even in circumstances where with the benefit of hindsight they perhaps should have acted.

Ahead of this weeks session, Osborne had said leadership would not call for further abortion restrictions. Several Republicans went further Thursday, voting with Democrats to pass House Bill 88, which would leave the existing law in place but prohibited the state from setting additional restrictions on access to abortion.

Rep. Kristine Perez, a Londonderry Republican, was not among them. Perez argued the existing law poses no threat to those who have an abortion prior to 24 weeks.

There is no law stating I cannot hike Mount Washington, Perez said. Therefore, if a law enforcement officer arrested me for hiking Mount Washington, it would have no merit and be thrown out.

She added: There is no law that says you have to wear a yellow shirt on Fridays. Therefore, you cannot be arrested for wearing a blue shirt on Friday. We have a law that allows women to exercise their rights as stated in the existing (law).

Rep. Alexis Simpson, an Exeter Democrat and the bills prime sponsor, countered that the U.S. Supreme Courts decision to overturn federal abortion protections makes state protections even more critical.

The 24-week abortion ban did not guarantee abortion protections prior to that cutoff, she said. HB 88 adds critical protections prior to 24 weeks, prohibiting the state from interfering with a womans access to abortion in the first 23 weeks of pregnancy.

The bill passed in a 199-185 division vote, a process that doesnt reveal how each member voted. But the Democrats are two members shy of 199 when all are present and voting and not all were Thursday.

An effort to add constitutional protections for reproductive health choices like abortion won a narrow 193-191 majority but fell far short of the required three-fifths vote to pass. Rep. Eric Turer, a Brentwood Democrat, urged representatives to support the legislation, which would have allowed voters to decide whether to enshrine the right in the state constitution.

Lets do the little D democratic thing. Lets do the little C conservative thing. Lets do the true Live Free or Die thing, Turer said. Lets pass this elegantly crafted bill to offer the people back their right.

Three Republicans joined Democrats in voting for the measure.

The House defeated House Bill 591, which would have banned abortion after six weeks. The 217-110 vote included 81 Republicans voting against the bill.

House Bill 562, the so-called informed consent bill, failed on a voice vote. It would have added a 24-hour waiting period before an abortion, during which time providers would have to tell the person seeking the abortion about the health risks of abortion, the availability of government assistance for pregnancy care, and the fact that the childs father is liable for child support if his identity can be determined..

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Republicans help deliver Democrats two abortion wins New ... - New Hampshire Bulletin

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The Republican Party has a problem: Individual freedom for women to choose how they handle their reproductive health is wildly popular with voters.

In last Novembers midtermsthe first general election since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wadesupporters of reproductive rights won every abortion-related state ballot measure, even in red states. Concerns over abortion rights helped propelDemocratic candidates to victory in race after race. With 13 states banning nearly allabortionssince June, dissatisfaction with Republican abortion policies is soaring high among US adults, and 60 percent of Americans say abortion should be legal in all or most cases.

So what is the Grand Old Party to do? Their answer, in several states, is to attempt to curb voters power on this front (and others) by taking aim at the roles of elected officials.

In Georgia and Texas, state legislatures are advancing bills that create a process to boot elected prosecutors from office if they decline to enforce a state lawas nearly 100prosecutors across the country pledged to do after the Supreme Court eliminated the right to abortion last June. The Georgia effort would create a commission that could remove or discipline prosecutors who demonstrate a willful and persistent failure to perform his or her duties. According to the Houston Chronicle, the Texas package of bills would allowing district court juries to remove prosecutors who set a policy of not enforcing a particular lawsuch as the states criminal abortion ban.

The bills involve issues beyond abortion, taking aim at the progressive prosecutors who have recently won elections in big Texas cities on promises not to charge certain low-level crimes, such as minor drug possession. But tellingly, theyve drawn support from anti-abortion activist groups.Prosecutors who decline to file charges in abortion-related cases undercut the gains we have made, Rebecca Parma, legislative director for Texas Right to Life, recently testified, according to the Chronicle.

Meanwhile in Ohio, where a law banning abortion after six weeks is currently blocked by a court challenge, reproductive rights groups submitted language last month for a state constitutional amendment guaranteeing access to abortion, which is expected to go before voters in November. Republicans lawmakers who want to make it harder for that amendment to pass have been pushing a different amendment that would raise the threshold of passage for state constitutional amendments from a simple majority to 60 percent supermajority. That proposal had appeared to die last December, amid protests and dissent among lawmakers. But the issue was renewed in a hearing last week, where its sponsor, state Rep. Brian Stewart, argued that constitutional amendments should be able to earn the widespread support that a 60 percent margin will require.

Theres a complication, though: For the higher vote threshold to apply to the abortion amendment, voters would first need to approve the supermajority amendment in a special election this summer. And here, Republican have shot themselves in the foot. Three months ago, as part of an elections bill that will require photo ID at the polls, they eliminated August special electionsarguing that those were too costly and drew low voter turnout. So now Republicans in Ohio are also pushing a bill to revive the August special elections, specifically to undermine the abortion amendment. If we save 30,000 lives as a result of spending $20 million, I think thats a great thing, Ohio Senate president Matt Huffman said last Thursday, according to the Ohio Capitol Journal.

The hypocrisy here has no bounds, Democratic state Rep. Alison Russo, the Ohio House minority leader, told the Capitol Journal. Really what this is about is silencing the voice of voters and shutting down direct democracy.

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Anti-Abortion Republicans Are Pushing State Legislation to ... - Mother Jones