Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., questioned Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas about one of his employees who praised terrorists, but still remains employed by the government.
On October 7, Hamas launched a multi-pronged terror attack on multiple Israeli army bases, civilian communities and a music festival. The Hamas paragliders who murdered teens and young adults at the music festival have been touted by some as a symbol of the attack, such as the Chicago Black Lives Matter chapter, which posted a graphic of a paraglider with the Palestinian flag that read “I Stand With Palestine.”
After asking about the prospect of revoking visas from foreign students calling for the destruction of Israel and Jewish people, Hawley read one such social media post and asked for Mayorkas’ opinion on the rhetoric.
“What about people who say things like, on October the seventh, ‘F Israel’ — I’m cleaning up the language here — ‘F Israel, the government and its military, are you ready for your downfall?’ People who say things like, ‘F Israel and any Jew who supports Israel. May your conscience haunt your dreams until your last breath. Palestine will be free one day. F apartheid Israel,’ This is pretty extreme rhetoric, don’t you think?”
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Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., (left) and Homeland Security Sec. Alejandro Mayorkas (right). (Getty Images)
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After Mayorkas argued there is a distinction between “espousing or endorsing terrorist ideology and speech that is odious,” Hawley followed with some key details.
“This person works for you,” he said, noting the DHS worker in question is “an employee of the Department of Homeland Security who posted these comments on October the seventh.”
He went on, “That’s not all she posted,” noting the department employee also posted a “fake graphic” depicting a “Hamas paraglider” armed with a machine gun and flying into Israel.
Hawley noted that this employee posted it with the celebratory caption, “Free PALESTINE.”
Hawley addressed Mayorkas and asked if this “asylum and immigration officer who is posting these, frankly, pro-genocidal slogans and images on the day that Israelis are being slaughtered in their beds” is “typical of people who work for the DHS.”
Mayorkas initially denounced the premise of the question, “Your question to suggest that that is emblematic of the men and women of the Department of Homeland Security is despicable.”
“I’m sorry, this person works for the Department of Homeland Security, have you fired her?” Hawley replied.
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
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He proceeded to grill Mayorkas over whether this employee had been fired as the DHS secretary tried to share other talking points.
“Don’t come to this hearing room when Israel has been invaded and Jewish students are barricaded in libraries in this country and cannot be escorted out because they are threatened for their lives,” Hawley shouted. “You have employees who are celebrating genocide, and you are saying it’s despicable for me to ask the question? Has she been fired?”
Mayorkas responded that that employee is currently on administrative leave, but insisted he would not speak on such an ongoing personnel matter, as Hawley asked why the social media posts were not a sufficient reason to remove her from her job.
After Mayorkas continued to refuse to answer certain questions, he condemned Hawley for his “adversarial approach,” citing that he himself was the child of a Holocaust survivor and that his mother nearly lost almost all of her family in that genocide, declaring the senator’s rhetoric was “disrespectful of me and my heritage.”
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