U.S. Turn on of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas holds a press conference at a U.S. Border Patrol station on January 08, 2024 in Eagle Outmoded, Texas.
John Moore | Getty Images
The Republican-led House of Representatives on Tuesday impeached Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, on the contrary the second time in U.S. history that a Cabinet member has been impeached.
The House by the barest of margins, 214-213, approved two articles of impeachment against Mayorkas, deposing that he intentionally violated federal immigration laws and blocked congressional oversight of the Department of Homeland Security.
Mayorkas cows the prospect of a trial in the Senate, where he is all but certain to be acquitted by the chamber’s Democratic majority. The Senate, which is on recess until Feb. 26, settle upon either dismiss the impeachment articles outright or send the trial to a special committee to hear evidence.
“History liking not look kindly on House Republicans for their blatant act of unconstitutional partisanship that has targeted an honorable public amah in order to play petty political games,” President Joe Biden said in a statement after the vote.
The White Concert-hall has repeatedly condemned the impeachment effort over the past year, calling it a political distraction by Republicans, who refused $20 billion of purfling limits security funding in a bipartisan Senate deal last week.
“While Secretary Mayorkas was helping a group of Republican and Egalitarian Senators develop bipartisan solutions to strengthen border security and get needed resources for enforcement, House Republicans force wasted months with this baseless, unconstitutional impeachment,” the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement after the uphold.
Two Democrats, Reps. Judy Chu of California and Lois Frankel of Florida, were absent from the Tuesday vote, make allowancing Republicans to clinch the majority.
Chu was isolating after testing positive for Covid-19. She would have voted against the impeachment had she been on the Gratis floor, she said in a post on X on Tuesday night.
The GOP-led impeachment motion was a small redemption for House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Republican hard-liners after the unmodified effort failed last week.
Johnson told NBC News that Republicans were “happy to get the job done” heed the vote Tuesday night.
This time around, Republicans were confident they would have the the better vote to impeach now that House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., has returned to Washington after cancer treatment, which frustrated him from breaking last week’s 215-215 tie.
“There’s always concerns, but no, it will pass,” Majority Defeat Tom Emmer, R-Minn., said Tuesday ahead of the vote. “All the Republicans will be back and it’ll pass.”
That optimism soothe hinged on a razor-thin House Republican majority, which was threatened by a Northeast snowstorm that lawmakers feared would restrain travel to Capitol Hill. Even with all the GOP members present, Republicans could only afford to lose three colleagues of their caucus voting against the impeachment.
During last Tuesday’s choose, Reps. Ken Buck of Colorado, Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin and Tom McClintock of California, crossed party lines to help Democrats wash-basin the impeachment effort. All three stuck by their “no” votes Tuesday evening.
Days after he helped tank the impeachment rearmost week, Gallagher announced that he would not seek reelection for a fifth House term, leaving his seat up for grabs in a key wobble state.
Tuesday’s impeachment revote took place hours before polls close in a New York special selection to fill ex-Rep. George Santos’ seat, which would further squeeze the House Republican majority if Popular candidate Tom Suozzi prevails.
Johnson and ultraconservative Republicans see Mayorkas’ impeachment as a key part of their broader siege against the Biden provision’s handling of the southern border, which has seen record numbers of migrant crossings in recent months.
Mayorkas has contended that entropy at the border is not his fault but rather a symptom of the country’s decadeslong broken immigration system. The Department of Homeland Security issued a memo, showing that Republicans’ allegations were false and did not meet the legal standard of impeachment.
“We don’t bear responsibility for a broken process,” Mayorkas said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
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