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FIRST ON FOX : The House Homeland Security Committee will hold a hearing next week that officially launches an investigation into the alleged “dereliction of duty” by DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in his handling of the ongoing crisis at the southern border.

The hearing, “Open Borders, Closed Case: Secretary Mayorkas’ Dereliction of Duty on the Border Crisis,” will take place on Wednesday and will include testimony from former acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf, former Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott and former acting U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services director Joe Edlow.

The committee has undertaken a vigorous oversight timetable toward the Biden administration’s handling of the migrant crisis — which spiraled to historic levels under its watch. The committee held a bombshell field hearing in March, in which Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz described a situation in which agents were overwhelmed in multiple sectors where there was no operational control of the border.

Since then, the committee played a central role in forming a border and immigration package, which passed the House in May, but has not yet been picked up in the Senate.

With the House passage, an investigation of Mayorkas’ conduct is on the table, committee chairman Rep. Mark Green told Fox News Digital.

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“We passed the legislation, and now we’re gearing up to hold Mayorkas accountable. That’s essentially what starts next Wednesday. And it’s going to be a process of basically investigating, looking at the facts of the decisions that have been made by this secretary and how it’s impacted the American people,” he said.

Many Republicans, including House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, have floated a potential impeachment of Mayorkas — with some members even introducing articles of impeachment against the DHS chief. But Green says the committee isn’t at that point yet.

“My mission as the chairman of [the committee] is ‘get to the facts.’ So we’re not talking about that. We’re not using that word. Every single thing we’re going to look at, every rock we’re going to look under is to find the facts,” he said. “And the facts, I think, are going to show that he has disregarded the laws passed by Congress, subverted those laws, been dishonest to Congress and the American people, among many, many other things. And we’re just going to get to the bottom of all that.”

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The Biden administration has backed Mayorkas, and has pushed back on Republicans and conservatives calling for his ouster. The agency has pointed to a sharp over 70% drop in border encounters since just before the end of Title 42 in May that it says shows that its plan is working “as intended.”

That plan includes a significant expansion of lawful pathways — including greater use of the controversial CBP One app and various parole programs — an asylum rule to limit claims by those who enter the country illegally, greater cooperation with Mexico, and stiffer penalties under Title 8, as well as increased repatriations. The administration has instead called on Congress to provide more funding and pass a sweeping immigration bill that the administration introduced on Day One. It has also touted a number of anti-smuggling efforts that it has launched in the region with regional partners.

“Secretary Mayorkas is proud to advance the noble mission of the Department, support its extraordinary workforce, and serve the American people,” a spokesperson told Fox News Digital this week in response to criticism of Mayorkas in a separate hearing. “The Department will continue to enforce our laws and secure our border, protect the United States from terrorism, and improve our cybersecurity, all while building a safe, orderly, and humane immigration system.

“Instead of pointing fingers and pursuing baseless attacks, Congress should work with the Department and pass comprehensive legislation to fix our broken immigration system, which has not been updated in decades,” the spokesperson said.

Green is skeptical of the numbers cited by the administration, noting that they are comparing to a historic spike of 10,000 migrants a day seen a few days before the end of Title 42, and arguing that there has been a lack of transparency on specific numbers from the administration that his committee has requested.

“It’s a shell game, and we’re going to get to the bottom of that in this investigation, too,” he said.

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He also rejected claims that the administration has been working to secure the border.

“What Alejandro Mayorkas has done has created an open border. And that open border was intentional. And unfortunately, the cartels have seized that opportunity, made billions of dollars on human trafficking, and they’ve also sent fentanyl into the United States in record numbers, killing Americans,” he said.

“So I think I have a duty to find out the answers about why and how. And I need to inform the American people of just exactly the failure that this secretary has been,” he added.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams is suing 30 New York counties over local executive orders intended to stop the city from housing migrants in their towns.

Adams, a Democrat, announced a lawsuit Wednesday that calls actions by these counties an “unlawful attempt” to prevent New York City from responding to a statewide emergency and humanitarian crisis. The lawsuit asks the court to declare the local orders null and void.

“This lawsuit aims to put an end to this xenophobic bigotry and ensure our state acts as one as we work together to manage this humanitarian crisis fairly and humanely, as we have done from the beginning and as we will continue to do,” Adams said in a statement.

New York City has been overwhelmed by tens of thousands of migrants pouring into the five boroughs in the past year. The mayor’s office said more than 74,000 asylum-seekers have sought shelter in the city to date — most entering the U.S. from the southern border — with more than 47,200 currently being housed by the City of New York. Hundreds of migrants are arriving daily, with as many as 900 individuals coming to the city in some weeks in May.

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The massive influx of migrants has sent the city scrambling to find a place for these people. New York City has opened up more than 160 emergency sites offering temporary shelter, placed migrants in hotels, school gymnasiums and partnered with churches or faith-based organizations to set up shelters in their buildings as well. Adams even suggested that the city pay private homeowners and landlords to house migrants.

With space running out in New York City, Adams declared a state of emergency on May 5 and a “new voluntary program” to transport migrants to other parts of New York state.

“Since this crisis began, New York City has — virtually on its own — stepped up to provide shelter, food, clothing, and other services to asylum-seekers arriving in our city. We are doing our part and will continue to do our part, but we need every locality across the state to do their part as well,” Adams said.

However, his policy puts the city in conflict with several New York counties that do not want to house the migrants. Those counties have said giving shelter to migrants would threaten public safety, citing reports of rampant drug use and lawless behavior at the hotels where New York City has placed asylum-seekers. Several counties and a town have obtained restraining orders against the city preventing migrants from being housed in their jurisdictions.

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The mayor’s office called claims of threats to public safety “baseless” and said that the city is only trying to house a “relatively small” number of people in outside jurisdictions.

“While many communities have been overwhelmingly supportive and enthusiastic about welcoming these new arrivals to their cities and towns, some elected officials have attempted to build metaphorical walls around their localities with unlawful executive orders,” Adams said.

The lawsuit comes after a federal judge on Tuesday halted two New York counties’ orders designed to block New York City from sending migrants to hotels in their jurisdictions.

Judge Nelson Roman of the Southern District of New York blocked the enactment of orders by Orange County and Rockland County that barred local hotels and motels from making rooms available to migrants from New York City.

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The judge found convincing civil rights groups’ arguments that migrants were being discriminated against on the basis of national origin, alienage and race, which violates the equal protection clause under the Fourteenth Amendment.

New York City’s migrant crisis was exacerbated by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s program to bus migrants to sanctuary cities including NYC, Philadelphia, Chicago and Washington, D.C.

Cities in Texas have also bussed migrants to cities deeper into the interior. It was revealed this week that Florida officials, who have previously sent migrants to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, have also been flying migrants to California.

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Those flights sparked a furious response from California officials, who accused Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis of kidnapping and exploiting the migrants involved. Florida officials pushed back , publishing video they say shows that the flights were voluntary.

DeSantis on Wednesday said it was right that states and cities with “sanctuary” policies bear the brunt of the migrant crisis.

“If there’s a policy to have an open border, then I think these sanctuary jurisdictions should be the ones that have to bear that,” he said. “We’re not a sanctuary in Florida.”

Fox News’ Adam Shaw contributed to this report.

The doctors’ union BMA warned strikes by consultants would be far more damaging than the recent junior doctor walk-outs (pictured are junior doctors picketing outside Southend University Hospital on April 14)

Dr Vishal Sharma, who chairs the BMA consultants committee, said: ‘Strike action is not inevitable and it is well within the Government’s gift to present us with a reasonable offer that would stop industrial action in its tracks’

READ MORE: Warning over ‘out of control’ hiring of foreign nurses – who can earn 7 times more by joining the NHS: Experts say ‘brain drain’ is killing patients in badly-affected countries like Ghana

More than half a million NHS appointments in England have been cancelled due to health service strikes since December, official figures show

Junior doctors on the Picket line outside The Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, London on April 14, 2023