As I have written before (and testified before the House Homeland Security Committee) disagreements with administration policy are not a proper ground for impeachment, either of a cabinet officer or a president. The Republicans rushing madly toward impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas cannot deny this universally agreed principle of constitutional practice. Hence, they are trying to gin up a path around that obstacle.

Their theory seems to be this: Secretary Mayorkas has allegedly “broken the law” and his supposed lawbreaking has produced terrible harms to the country – according to Republicans, an unsustainably large increase in the number of undocumented migrants present inside the U.S. and, critically to their case, a massive increase in fentanyl imports and all the public health ills caused by fentanyl abuse.

The allegations of lawbreaking virtually all relate to Secretary Mayorkas’s exercise of his discretionary authority over parole or other forms of provisional release of undocumented aliens into the U.S. pending resolution of asylum claims or for other humanitarian or foreign policy reasons. In March of last year, I explained why these claims of “lawbreaking” were incorrect. And both I and Prof. Deborah Pearlstein amplified on the point in our recent testimonies before the House Homeland Security Committee.

The most one can say is that the courts are processing a series of disputes between Secretary Mayorkas and his (Republican) critics about the proper interpretation of immigration law. And in both of the cases in this series to reach the U.S. Supreme Court, Biden v. Texas, 597 U.S. 785 (2022), and United States v. Texas, 599 U.S. 670 (June 23, 2023), the Court sided with the Secretary. As I further explained in my testimony before the House Homeland Security Committee, even if the Administration were to lose one or more of the remaining cases, the existence of legal disputes over statutory interpretation is not a proper ground for impeachment. If it were, every President and virtually every cabinet secretary would be guilty of impeachable offenses.

But let us assume for the moment that Secretary Mayorkas was indeed “breaking the law” by relaxing restrictions on parole and other temporary admissions programs for undocumented migrants. To be sure, his decisions in that area have contributed (along with “push factors” arising from conditions in Central and South America) to the increase in the number of undocumented migrants released into the interior.

But there is absolutely no credible connection between decisions about immigrant parole or temporary admissions and the magnitude of fentanyl imports into the United States.

I will address in a moment the hard evidence that discredits this connection. But a moment’s reflection demonstrates that the Republican’s impeachment argument about fentanyl imports cannot pass the laugh test.

Remember that the Secretary’s supposed violation of law (the “violation” upon which the Republican theory of impeachment depends) is relaxation of rules on parole or temporary release of migrants into the interior. To obtain any benefit from this relaxation, a migrant must actually encounter a Border Patrol or other immigration officer, make a case for parole pending resolution of an asylum claim or for release on some other ground, and be processed for release. As a routine matter, before release, the effects of persons released will be searched for contraband. The idea that vast quantities of fentanyl are somehow evading detection in the personal effects of asylum claimants physically processed by U.S. immigration and customs authorities is just ludicrous.

Indeed, although there may be a case of an attempt to smuggle fentanyl in this absurd way, I am unaware of one.

It is notable that none of the three state attorneys general from Missouri, Oklahoma, and Montana called in the first Mayorkas hearing, each of whom associated Secretary Mayorkas’s contested parole policies with fentanyl abuse, could cite a single instance in which a paroled immigrant had imported or sold fentanyl in their jurisdiction. Still less did they claim any pattern of such conduct. See their written testimony here.

The truth is that fentanyl, like all other illegal drugs imported to the U.S. on a large scale, comes into the U.S. primarily through regular points of entry, concealed in cargo, in vehicles, or perhaps on the persons of U.S. citizens or others with lawful entry documents.

As but two proofs of this invariable fact about large scale drug trafficking that I learned long ago as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Miami, Florida, consider:

According the United States Sentencing Commission, in FY 2022, 88.2% of all fentanyl trafficking defendants were U.S. citizens, a fraction that actually increased from FY 2021, when 86.4% of convicted fentanyl traffickers were U.S. citizens.

Likewise, Customs and Border Patrol statistics show that 90% of all fentanyl seizures occur at regular points of entry, not in the long stretches of border between those points of entry. (Republicans may respond that some unknown quantities of fentanyl nonetheless comes across the border between regular points of entry, and while that it is surely true, it is irrelevant to whether persons paroled or otherwise released into the United States under Secretary Mayorkas’s policies are smuggling fentanyl or anything else.)

Fentanyl abuse is undeniably a tragic contemporary problem. But, like the other waves of drug abuse that preceded it, notably abuse of methamphetamine, heroin, and crack cocaine, the solution to the problem does not lie in the illusion that the U.S. border can be impermeably sealed against smuggling an easily concealed, immensely profitable substance.

But more to the present point, there is absolutely no logical connection between the present upsurge in fentanyl imports and Secretary Mayorkas’s legal interpretations of his parole or temporary release authority under US immigration law. The attempt to make such a connection a ground for impeachment is a transparent sham and should be rejected out of hand.