DHS Secretary Mayorkas grilled by Republicans just days after effort to impeach him FAILED: Biden's border chief and FBI Director Wray forced to answer to the rising threats to homeland security

Republicans are grilling Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas today, just days after an effort to impeach him failed.

Mayorkas is on Capitol Hill for the first time since the House voted down a proposal to impeach him on Monday - after a handful of Republicans sided with Democrats against the move.

In a 209 to 201 vote, eight Republicans joined Democrats in voting to refer the impeachment resolution back to the Homeland Security Committee - effectively punting it indefinitely.

'[Republicans are] on a crusade to impeach the secretary without legal justification,' Democratic Ranking Member Bennie Thompson said at the start of the House Homeland Security Committee hearing on worldwide threats Wednesday. 

Chairman Mark Green, R-Tenn., did not mention the failed impeachment push in his opening remarks, and instead focused on the record-breaking numbers of illegal migrants who have entered the U.S. under Mayorkas' leadership.

He also detailed the billions of dollars Mexican cartels are making off of human smuggling, calling the Biden administration's policies a 'humanitarian and national security crisis.'

His committee is especially concerned with the numbers of individuals on the terrorist watchlist that have snuck into the U.S., which Green says is especially concerning after the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel on October 7.

'And yet, Secretary Mayorkas has continued to mislead Congress and the American people, claiming that this is what a secure border looks like,' he said in remarks first obtained by DailyMail.com. 

'Without question, the homeland is less safe under President Biden.' 

The Mayorkas impeachment proposal, put forth by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, had support from other establishment and moderate Republicans, proving how much tides have changed for the Homeland Security secretary since the start of this Congress when many were leery of impeaching him.

Greene's impeachment resolution accused him of failing to uphold U.S. law to maintain operational control of the border.

'In his willful admittance of border crossers, terrorists, human traffickers, drugs and other contraband, Alejandro Nicholas Mayorkas has failed to maintain operational control of the border, thereby violating the Secure Fence Act of 2006,' the resolution claims.

But Homeland Chairman Green had urged colleagues to vote to move the resolution to committee, saying he wished to finish up his  five-phase investigation of Mayorkas first.

He previously indicated to DailyMail.com that at the conclusion of the investigation, the committee could move forward with an impeachment vote. 

In his opening remarks Wednesday, Green focused on the 'record-breaking year for illegal immigration' under Mayorkas' leadership. 

'CBP reported 2.47 million alien encounters along the Southwest border in Fiscal Year 2023. Since taking office, Secretary Mayorkas has overseen more than 6.5 million Southwest border encounters, 7.8 million nationwide encounters, and more than 1.8 million known gotaways—all records,' Green stated.

'To put this in perspective: The number of illegal immigrants who entered our country since President Biden took office is greater than the population of 33 of our states. I’ll repeat that: more than 33 out of our 50 states.' 

FBI Director Wray focused on threats that terrorists pose to the United States. He said that Al Qaeda has issued it's 'most specific call' to attack the U.S. in the past five years. 

'Given those calls for action, our most immediate concern is that individuals or small groups will draw twisted inspiration from the events in the Middle East to carry out attacks here at home,' he stated.  

The cost of providing education, healthcare, law enforcement and other expenditure resulting from millions of extra migrants adds up to as much as $451 billion a year, says the fourth installation of House Republicans' report released Monday.

'Every day, millions of American taxpayer dollars are spent on costs directly associated with illegal immigration and the unprecedented crisis at the Southwest border sparked by … Mayorkas' policies,' says the report.

'Mass illegal immigration, accelerated by Mayorkas' open-borders policies, now represents a massive cost to the federal government and state governments alike, as well as the pocketbooks of private citizens and businesses.'

President Joe Biden's administration has grappled with record numbers of migrants trying to cross the US-Mexico border illegally, a trend fueled by ever more people fleeing political chaos in Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.

Since Biden took office in 2021, US border agents have made more than 5 million arrests of migrants making irregular crossings — that is, not through a controlled border station — over the U.S.-Mexico border.