WASHINGTON – In their second attempt in as many weeks, U.S. House Republicans impeached Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Tuesday, marking a turning point in the growing rift between the Republican Party and the White House over immigration policy decisions at the southern border marked.
In a 214-213 voteagreed the House two counts It accused Mayorkas of willfully ignoring immigration law and lying to Congress about the status of border security. It is only the second time in history that a Cabinet member has been indicted; William Belknap, Secretary of War and former Iowa state legislator, was indicted in 1876.
A vote on the same resolution failed spectacularly last week214-216, while GOP House Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana was absent due to ongoing cancer treatments. Republican Rep. Blake Moore of Utah changed his vote from “yes” to “no” to allow the resolution to be reconsidered.
“House Republicans are far from done,” said House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green of Tennessee wrote on X before the vote on Tuesday. “Secretary Mayorkas has unleashed the worst border crisis in American history, and it is long past time for him to be impeached.”
Green held several impeachment hearings against Mayorkas.
All Democrats present in the House of Representatives and three Republicans voted against it two counts. Critics of the trial said a Cabinet official should not be charged over political disputes.
The Republicans who voted against impeachment were Reps. Ken Buck of Colorado, Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin and Tom McClintock of California.
President Joe Biden criticized Republicans in the House of Representatives, calling the impeachment vote “little political games.”
“Secretary of Homeland Security Mayorkas, a Cuban immigrant who came to the United States with his family as a political refugee, has spent more than two decades serving America with integrity in a distinguished career in law enforcement and public service,” Biden said. “Instead of staging political stunts like this, Republicans with real concerns about the border should want Congress to provide more border resources and stronger border security.”
After the vote, Mia Ehrenberg, a spokeswoman for DHS, said in a statement: “House Republicans will go down in history for trampling on the Constitution for political gain rather than working to solve the sedate challenges at our border work.”
The Senate is required by the Constitution to conduct impeachment proceedings. Conviction would require a vote of two-thirds of that chamber.
Immigration conflict
The impeachment effort launched by Georgia Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene is perhaps the most prominent example of the growing conflict between Democrats and Republicans over how to handle unprecedented numbers of migrants at the southern border.
Tensions only increased after Senate Republicans a cross-party border security agreement failed last week. The agreement would have significantly overhauled U.S. immigration law, establishing a ephemeral procedure for closing the border during dynamic periods and raising the hurdle for asylum claims.
The border security deal, which included a $95 billion security package, failed in the Senate after Republicans joined Republican front-runner Donald Trump, who has focused his campaign on stoking fears about immigration at the southern border.
The global security package The bill passed early Tuesday without the immigration deal.
House Democrats have condemned the effort to impeach Mayorkas as political, while Republicans have argued that Mayorkas should be held accountable for what they say is a “crisis” at the southern border.
The first article of impeachment accuses Mayorkas of a “deliberate and systematic refusal to comply with the law,” and the second accuses him of breaching the public trust by making false statements during testimony before Congress, particularly relying on statements made by Mayorkas, in which he told lawmakers that the border would be crossed “safely.”
Two impeachment votes
Because of Republicans’ razor-thin majority in the House and absences last week, House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana could only afford a two-vote loss in the first impeachment vote on Feb. 6. Scalise was back in Washington on Tuesday, giving the Republicans a lead they had to overcome three members who voted for the Democrats.
The same Republican lawmakers who voted against the second impeachment also voted against the first – Buck, McClintock and Gallagher.
Gallagher, who was a key holdout in the effort to impeach Mayorkas, announced soon afterward that he would do so not seek re-election.
In an opinion piece in the Wall Street JournalGallagher explained his vote against impeachment and expressed concern about the precedent it would set.
“Creating a new, lower standard for impeachment without clear limiting principles would neither secure the border nor hold President Biden accountable,” he wrote. “It would only further open Pandora’s box of perpetual impeachment.”
The White House said in a statement last week that impeaching Mayorkas “would be an unprecedented and unconstitutional act of political retaliation that would do nothing to address the challenges our nation faces in securing the border.”
According to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s office, House impeachment managers will present the articles of impeachment to the Senate when the chamber returns later this month. Senators will be sworn in as jurors in the trial the next day. Senate President Pro Tempore Patty Murray, a Democrat from Washington state, will preside.
