Four GOP candidates are battling to lead the House Homeland Security Committee, vying for a job that will put them at the center of President Trump’s immigration agenda.

Rep. Michael Guest (R-Miss.) threw his hat in the ring Wednesday, joining a crowded field with Reps. Andrew Garbarino (R-N.Y.), Carlos Gimenez (R-Fla.) and Clay Higgins (R-La.) all running for the top spot on the panel.

The Republican Steering Committee will make a decision Monday night on who will fill the vacancy left by Rep. Mark Green’s (R-Tenn.) exit from Congress.

“They all have their attributes,” Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), the most senior member of the committee, told The Hill.

“Michael Guest was a prosecutor like myself. He's very intelligent, very good temperament. I think Gimenez has a passion for the job. Certainly, Clay Higgins has a lot of passion,” he said with a laugh. “And he's closer to the border, so he gets the border issues.”

McCaul noted that former New York representative and committee Chair Peter King encouraged Garbarino to run, saying the sitting lawmaker “brings the New York, 9/11” perspective in a committee with a broad reach.

Garbarino has stressed the committee’s roots in addressing terrorism as well as many other nonimmigration policy issues central to the committee, like disaster response. Gimenez, a former mayor and firefighter, has called for “nuance” in some Trump immigration policies. Guest is a former prosecutor who now chairs the House Ethics Committee. Higgins, a former police officer, is the most senior member of the group.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said the group had created “quite a horse race.”

Whoever leads the committee will be in charge of oversight of the sprawling Department of Homeland Security, which must contend with immigration issues as well as cyberattacks, disaster planning, transportation security and more.

As the race comes down to the wire, Higgins and Guest are both stressing their years of service on the panel.

Guest has served in a number of leadership roles on the panel, including as a vice chair and subcommittee chair, and he has also........

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