WASHINGTON – Eleven Republicans serving as impeachment managers in the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday submitted two articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to the U.S. Senate.
The ceremonial handover of the chargesaccusing Mayorkas of a “willful and systematic refusal to comply with federal immigration law” and abuse of the public trust, is an escalation in a years-long conflict between Republicans in Congress and the Biden administration over their handling of immigration. The issue has played a central role in the run-up to the November election.
Senate Democrats have indicated that they intend to quickly end the impeachment process.
“We want to address this issue as quickly as possible,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on the Senate floor on Tuesday. “Impeachment proceedings should never be used to settle a political disagreement.”
Schumer, a Democrat from New York, can make a motion to reject or adjourn the articles, which would pass with a plain majority. Democrats and independents who vote with them in organizing the chamber hold a 51-49 majority.
Given the partisan makeup of the Senate and the two-thirds majority required for conviction, it is unlikely that Mayorkas will be convicted and removed from office.
Push for a trial
However, Republicans continue to push for a trial.
“We expect and demand that all 100 senators listen to the arguments of the House impeachment managers,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson during a press conference on Tuesday. “If Senator Schumer cares at all about the suffering of Americans and the disaster Mayorkas has caused at the border, he will conduct a full and public trial.”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky made similar remarks.
“It would be beneath the dignity of the Senate to dismiss our clear responsibility and not give the charges before us today the thorough scrutiny they deserve,” McConnell said on the Senate floor on Tuesday.
Washington State Democratic Senator Patty Murray, who is presiding over the hearing, announced that the Senate would inform the House when senators were ready to proceed with a trial.
The Senate Sergeant of Arms introduced the impeachment managers: Mark Green of Tennessee, Michael McCaul of Texas, Andy Biggs of Arizona, Ben Cline of Virginia, Andrew Garbarino of New York, Michael Guest of Mississippi, Harriet Hageman of Wyoming, Clay Higgins of Louisiana, Laurel Lee of Florida, August Pfluger of Texas and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.
Green of Tennessee, lead impeachment manager and chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, who the impeachment proceedings for Mayorkas: Read the two articles of impeachment to the Senators after you delivered them on Tuesday afternoon.
The impeachment managers then returned to the House of Representatives.
“The Senate has a responsibility to conduct a full trial, hear the evidence, and reach a verdict,” Green said in a statement after the articles of impeachment were handed down. “To refuse to do so would be the first time the Senate has refused to hold an impeachment trial when it has the opportunity to do so.”
Schumer said the senators would be sworn in as jurors at 1 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesday.
If the trial goes ahead, it will be the first time a sitting Cabinet member has been impeached. The last Cabinet official to be impeached was William Belknap in 1876. resigned before the House of Representatives and Senate could vote on his impeachment and removal as Secretary of War.
Articles of Impeachment
Just hours before House impeachment managers ceremoniously sent the two articles of impeachment to the Senate, Mayorkas appeared before the same committee that pushed his impeachment – the Homeland Security Committee. At the morning hearing, Mayorkas answered questions about his department’s budget request for fiscal year 2025.
During the hearing, questions about impeachment arose.
Republicans questioned Mayorkas on migration at the southern border, while Democrats said the charges against Mayorkas fell below the threshold of “high crimes and misdemeanors” required for impeachment and were more likely due to political differences between Republicans and the White House.
The same committee expanded the articles of impeachment in January. The Republicans in the House of Representatives needed two attempts vote to approve the articles of impeachment in the House of Representatives.
The first count cites sections of the Immigration and Nationality Act that Republicans say Mayorkas failed to follow. The article accuses Mayorkas of failing to comply with the law’s detention and deportation provisions, ignoring requirements for expedited removals, and abusing the government’s humanitarian parole authority.
The White House has had parole authority since the 1950s, and the Biden administration has created ephemeral protections for certain nationals of Afghanistan, Ukraine, Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, Venezuela and other countries to allow them to temporarily work and stay in the country.
The second count argues that Mayorkas abused the public trust by making several statements in his testimony before Congress that Republicans believe are false. In particular, Mayorkas told lawmakers that the southern border was “secure.”
Conservative unrest
Johnson said Republicans in the House were particularly focused on Mayorkas’ impeachment.
Johnson also faces the challenge of removing him from his position as speaker, an initiative led by one of the impeachment managers, Greene of Georgia.
The Republican from Georgia published a scathing five-page letter on April 9, threatening to oust Johnson from office and urging her Republican colleagues to support his removal. Greene also filed a petition for eviction in behind schedule March. but did not force a vote on it.
Republican Thomas Massie from Kentucky joined Greene’s cause on Tuesdayand called for Johnson’s removal as speaker.
Johnson tried to suppress opposition from the far-right faction of his party by a sign of unity with presumptive Republican presidential candidate Donald J. Trump last week in Palm Beach, Florida. During that visit, Johnson promoted a yet-to-be-published bill that relates to noncitizen voting in federal elections.
Greene first introduced articles of impeachment in September, months before the House Homeland Security Committee began impeachment proceedings, and has long been pushing for Mayorkas’s impeachment.
Johnson had originally planned for the impeachment managers to hand over the charges last week, but delayed doing so at the request of Republican senators.
These Republicans in the Senate asked for postponement to prevent the start of impeachment proceedings on the same day that senators were scheduled to leave Washington and head home.
“You don’t want lawmakers trying to leave town so quickly that they’re affected by jet exhaust,” Utah Senator Mike Lee said last week.
