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Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas speaks during the daily press briefing at the White House in March 2021. © Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post
Republicans want to use Joe Biden's border policy against him and are initiating proceedings against Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas - but there is resistance within the party.
Washington, DC – Republicans in the House of Representatives took a historic step and impeached Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas by a single vote on Tuesday evening (February 13).
This was their second attempt to punish the administrator of President Joe Biden's immigration policy.
The unprecedented resolution — which pushed through the House over opposition from Democrats and three GOP members — may not get very far in the Senate because some Republicans in the upper chamber don't believe Mayorkas' actions meet the "high crimes and misdemeanors" required for conviction " fulfill.
But Mayorkas is the first sitting Cabinet secretary to be impeached, and some bipartisan and legal observers fear that the most powerful tool the U.S. Constitution provides to restrain a public official is being used as a partisan political weapon.
Republican trio opposes impeachment proceedings
There was uncertainty ahead of Tuesday night's vote, with House GOP leaders poised to throw out the two articles of impeachment against Mayorkas if they didn't have a majority.
Speaker Mike Johnson (Republican, Louisiana) instead avoided another embarrassing spectacle by securing a narrow victory after enough lawmakers returned to Washington to show up in the chamber, despite concerns about a major snowstorm in the northeastern United States.
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Reps. Mike Gallagher (Wisconsin), Ken Buck (Colorado) and Tom McClintock (Calif.), the same trio of Republicans who opposed impeaching Mayorkas last week, voted again against their party's measure.
Johnson released a statement after the vote emphasizing Congress's "constitutional obligation" to impeach Mayorkas and asserted that Republicans, who have called for his impeachment since the secretary took office, were serious about the process.
But despite the historic nature of Tuesday's vote, senators have expressed doubts about the allegations.
Mia Ehrenberg, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, criticized House Republicans, saying in a statement that they were "trampling the Constitution for political reasons instead of working to solve the serious problems at our border."
Four impeachments in the last five years
“Without a shred of evidence or legitimate constitutional grounds, and despite bipartisan opposition, House Republicans have falsely maligned a dedicated public servant who has spent more than 20 years enforcing our laws and serving our country,” Ehrenberg added.
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The office of Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-New York) announced in a statement that the House impeachment managers will submit the articles of impeachment to the Senate when senators return to Washington at the end of the month.
Senate President Patty Murray (D-Wash.) will preside over the trial, and 11 GOP appointees will serve as prosecutors.
The impeachment trial against Mayorkas is the culmination of an increasingly bitter partisan battle in Congress, particularly on the issue of immigration.
House Republicans have filed a series of articles of impeachment against Biden administration officials under pressure from former President Donald Trump, and formal impeachment proceedings against Biden were initiated last fall.
Impeachment, a tool that should rarely be used, has been used in one form or another four times in the last five years - on two presidents and one Cabinet secretary.
After acquittals in 2019 and 2020, Trump has called on Republicans in Congress to retaliate politically on his behalf.
In 1876, William Belknap, President Ulysses S. Grant's secretary of war, resigned after being accused of corruption but was still impeached by the House of Representatives.
Republicans want to use Biden's immigration policies against him
Democrats have argued that Republicans have abused the tool to resolve political differences, highlighting the hypocrisy of seeking to remove Mayorkas for allegedly neglecting to secure the southern border while simultaneously scuttling a bipartisan package negotiated in the Senate to improve border security.
On Tuesday evening, Republicans in the House of Representatives achieved what they had failed to do last week when they failed to remove Mayorkas by just one vote.
They accused him of gross mismanagement in dealing with the large influx of migrants at the border.
Last week, the promise of political retribution went unfulfilled after Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) left his hospital bed to cast his vote, leaving Republicans one vote short of impeaching Mayorkas.
Johnson, who is fighting for his razor-thin majority, described the failed vote as a “setback” at the time.
Republicans have targeted immigration as a cudgel against Biden in his re-election campaign.
Polls show Americans are dissatisfied with how the government is handling the issue.
But Democrats hope they have made progress after Trump ridiculed the bipartisan immigration bill that combines border reforms with foreign aid to Israel and Ukraine, prompting many Republicans in Congress to abandon the bill.
The Senate has passed a standalone foreign aid package, but House Republicans are refusing to accept it because border reforms are not included.
Impeachment proceedings against Biden Secretary Mayorkas: Resistance from Republicans
The further the case against Mayorkas has progressed, the louder the opposition to the two articles of impeachment - "willful and systematic refusal to obey the law" and violation of public trust - has become.
Gallagher last week joined Buck and McClintock in opposing impeachment proceedings against Mayorkas, saying it would open a "Pandora's Box."
Gallagher, joining the consensus of legal experts on both sides of the aisle, argued in an opinion piece in the
Wall Street Journal
that the “blatant incompetence” described in the first article of impeachment “does not rise to the level of high crimes or misdemeanors “.
Some Republican senators have criticized the use of a tool that should rarely be used as a weapon in partisan warfare.
Other conservative voices, including the Fraternal Order of Police, came forward last week to offer their support to Mayorkas, and a bipartisan trio of former Homeland Security secretaries called on Johnson to withdraw the vote.
Over the weekend, Mayorkas called the allegations against him "baseless" in an interview on
NBC
's "Meet the Press" and called on Congress to fix "a broken system" by passing legislation.
About the author
Jacqueline Alemany
is a congressional investigations reporter at The Washington Post.
Previously, she was the author of The Early 202, the Post's flagship newspaper that delivers the most important news early in the morning to the nation's many power centers.
Alemany also serves as a guest editor on NBC News and MSNBC.
We are currently testing machine translations. This article was automatically translated from English into German.
This article was first published in English on February 14, 2024 at the “Washingtonpost.com” - as part of a cooperation, it is now also available in translation to readers of the IPPEN.MEDIA portals.