House Republicans on Sunday announced two articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, speeding up efforts to replace him in an election year over his so-called failures in controlling the U.S.-Mexico border. I vowed to proceed. The unusual action against the cabinet drew anger from Democrats and government agencies, calling it a politically motivated move that lacked a constitutional basis for removing Mr. Mayorkas from office.
Republicans allege Mayorkas has committed “high crimes and misdemeanors” that amount to a “deliberate and systematic refusal to comply with immigration laws” and a “breach of public trust.” They say impeachment is “Congress’ only viable option.”
“Alejandro N. Mayorkas intentionally and systematically refused to comply with immigration laws, failed to maintain border controls that undermined national security, violated public safety, and violated the rule of law and separation of powers of the Constitution. and caused demonstrable harm to the people of the United States,” the impeachment resolution reads.
Only once in American history has a Cabinet Secretary been impeached. In 1876, President Ulysses S. Grant’s Secretary of War, William Belknap, was impeached over kickbacks on government contracts. In this case, it is unprecedented for Mr. Mayorkas to go after officials over policy disputes over claims that he does not support immigration laws.
Republicans have been pushing for Mayorkas’ impeachment since taking control of the House in 2023. Sunday’s announcement came as another impeachment effort to impeach Democratic President Joe Biden over the business dealings of his son Hunter is stalling.
But after a series of hearings in recent weeks, Republicans are rapidly moving against Mr. Mayorkas. It all comes as border security and immigration are key issues in the 2024 campaign, with Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump vowing to launch the largest deportation operation in U.S. history if he returns home. It’s happening at the promised time. White House.
The Republican-controlled House Homeland Security Committee is scheduled to vote on the articles of impeachment on Tuesday, with the aim of sending them to the full chamber for consideration. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) said the House would then move forward with a vote as soon as possible.
Only a House majority is required for passage. The case will be tried in the Senate, where a two-thirds vote would be required for conviction, but an outcome in the Democratic-run Senate is highly unlikely.
The Republican push also comes at an interesting time for Mayorkas.
While the House takes steps to remove him from office, Mayorkas continues to negotiate tough negotiations with senators in an effort to forge bipartisan agreement on border policy. He has won praise from senators for his involvement in the process.
Democrats have blasted the impeachment process, calling it a waste of time when lawmakers should be working together to resolve the issue. They also claim that Republicans are involved in the border issue, and that Republicans are attacking Mayorkas despite not giving his department the tools it needs to manage the situation.
“They don’t want to solve the problem, they want to campaign on the problem. That’s why they are undermining efforts to achieve bipartisan solutions and calling for baseless impeachment of the Secretary based on facts, jurisprudence. “Mayorkas has ignored experts, experts, and even the Constitution itself,” the ministry said in a statement on Sunday.
Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, the top Democrat on the House committee, said the Republican resolution contained “not a single shred of evidence of a high crime or misdemeanor, which is the constitutional standard for impeachment.”
These two articles are the culmination of a nearly year-long investigation into the Secretary of State’s response to the Republican border crisis and the administration’s own perceived crisis. Republicans have argued that the administration and the Mayorkas specifically repealed policies in place under the Trump administration that regulated immigration or prevented immigrants from all over the world from coming to the U.S. illegally through the southern border. They argue that either they have enacted their own policies to encourage them. They also accused Mr. Mayorkas of lying to Congress, pointing to statements about a secure border and testing of Afghans flown into the United States.
They point out that the number of migrants continues to grow, sometimes overwhelming Customs and Border Protection authorities’ ability to care for and process them. More than 2 million people were arrested for illegally crossing in each of the past two U.S. government budget years. In December, the number of people arrested for illegally crossing the border from Mexico reached a record high since statistics were released. The immigration court backlog increased by 1 million over the past budget year.
In the article, Republicans argue that Mayorkas is intentionally violating immigration laws passed by Congress, such as mandating the detention of immigrants, and that his policies are creating a crisis at the border. They accuse him of releasing migrants without an effective way to bring them to court or remove them from the country. They cited an Immigration and Customs Enforcement memo in which Mr. Mayorkas established priorities for enforcement proceedings as evidence that he was allowing people to remain who were not entitled to do so. .
They also attacked the administration’s use of the DHS secretary’s humanitarian parole authority to allow certain immigrants into the country. Republicans said the Biden administration created a mass parole program that essentially bypasses Congress. They cited cities like New York, which are struggling with large numbers of immigrants and strains on their housing and education systems, as evidence of the economic costs of immigration.
Democrats, like Mr. Mayorkas, argue that it is not the administration’s policies that drive people to immigrate to the United States, but that the movement is part of a global mass migration fleeing war, economic instability, and political repression. ing. They argue that Mr. Mayorkas is doing his best to manage border security, but the system has not been updated in decades and is chronically underfunded.
The department on Sunday cited the large numbers of people who have been expelled from the country, especially over the past six months, and its efforts to smuggle fentanyl as evidence that DHS is not slacking on its mission at the border. And they said no government could detain all those who crossed the border illegally because of space capacity. Instead, focus on those who pose security threats.
“The 100% detention standard means that Congress should have impeached every DHS Secretary since the agency’s creation,” the agency said in a statement.
It was almost 150 years ago that the House of Representatives unanimously passed a five-point impeachment charge against Belknap, accusing him of criminal disregard for his cabinet duties and use of his power for personal gain. Belknap had resigned the same day, March 2, 1876. After a trial in the Senate, a majority of senators voted to convict him, but there were not enough votes to reach the required two-thirds majority, and Belknap was acquitted.
