The United States Republican-led House on Tuesday night narrowly impeached Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over what they claim is his failure to enforce border and immigration laws, which he denies as “baseless.”
The historic move — only the second Cabinet impeachment since the country’s founding, after William Belknap in 1876 — has been criticized by some Republicans and is expected to be rejected by Democrats in the Senate.
The House GOP tried and failed last week to impeach Mayorkas on the same accusations.
“Alejandro Mayorkas deserves to be impeached, and Congress has a constitutional obligation to do so.
“Next to a declaration of war, impeachment is arguably the most serious authority given to the House and we have treated this matter accordingly,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said in a statement after Tuesday’s vote.
Johnson blamed Mayorkas for “fueling the worst border catastrophe in American history.”
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson shot back in a statement that “without a shred of evidence or legitimate Constitutional grounds, and despite bipartisan opposition, House Republicans have falsely smeared a dedicated public servant who has spent more than 20 years enforcing our laws and serving our country.
“Secretary Mayorkas and the Department of Homeland Security will continue working every day to keep Americans safe,” the spokesperson said.
The articles of impeachment against Mayorkas passed on Tuesday 214-213, with the majority made up of only Republicans and three Republicans voting with Democrats against impeachment.
Two Democrats representatives, Judy Chu and Lois Frankel, and Republican Reps. Brian Mast and Maria Salazar did not vote.
Reps. Ken Buck, Mike Gallagher and Tom McClintock — the same three Republicans who opposed a previous attempt to impeachment Mayorkas last week — kept their opposition.
Mayorkas will now face a trial in the Democratic-controlled Senate, where a two-thirds majority vote will be needed to convict and remove him from office, which is very unlikely.
The chamber’s majority leader, Chuck Schumer, on Tuesday night labeled the impeachment a “sham.”
US President Joe Biden echoed that criticism in a statement of his own on Tuesday, saying in part, “History will not look kindly on House Republicans for their blatant act of unconstitutional partisanship.”
The Senate is on a two-week recess, returning February 26.
“The House impeachment managers will present the articles of impeachment to the Senate following the state work period. Senators will be sworn in as jurors in the trial the next day. Senate President Pro Tempore Patty Murray will preside,” Schumer’s office said.
Republicans have accused Mayorkas of “willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law” and “breach of public trust” amid a surge in unauthorized migrant crossings, according to the articles of impeachment against him.
Critics of the impeachment push, including Rep. Buck of Colorado, have said the articles don’t show specific crimes or wrongdoing and instead reflect a political dispute with the Biden administration.
“This administration has removed, returned, or expelled more migrants in three years than the prior Administration did in four years,” DHS said in a memo circulated ahead of Tuesday’s vote.
The previous attempt to impeach Mayorkas surprisingly failed last week after the three Republicans voted against it along with all Democrats present.
That marked a major defeat for Speaker Johnson and other House GOP leaders.
“Last night was a setback, but democracy is messy,” Johnson told reporters the next day on Capitol Hill, seeking to soften the losses. “We live in a time of divided government. We have a razor-thin margin here, and every vote counts.”
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise then returned to Washington after blood cancer treatment to help his party’s narrow majority in the second vote, on Tuesday.
Scalise’s office said in a statement on Thursday that he “successfully completed his autologous stem cell treatment and has been medically cleared to resume travel.”
The Louisiana Republican is in “complete remission,” his office said then.
On NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, Mayorkas maintained that the flood of migrants at the border has been a problem for years and that legislative action is needed to fix the system.
In December, there were 302,000 encounters along the southwest border — the highest monthly total ever recorded.
Kristen Welker pressed Mayorkas on whether he bears the responsibility for the flood of migrants crossing the border — something President Joe Biden has called a “crisis.”
“It certainly is a crisis, and, well, we don’t bear responsibility for a broken system and we’re doing a tremendous amount within that broken system,” Mayorkas said. “But, fundamentally, fundamentally, Congress is the only one who can fix that.”
Last week, the Senate’s vote to advance a bipartisan foreign aid bill with major new border provisions failed — a blow to the negotiators who worked for months with Mayorkas to develop the border deal. Johnson other notable GOP critics of the agreement argued it was insufficient.
“The system has not been fixed for 30 years.
“A bipartisan group of senators have now presented us with the tools and resources we need … and yet, Congress killed it before even reading it,” Mayorkas said on NBC.