House Republicans finally voted to impeach Homeland Security Sec. Alejandro Mayorkas exactly one week after their first attempt spectacularly failed.
The two articles of impeachment accuse President Biden’s top border official Mayorkas of failing to uphold immigration law and lying to Congress about the state of the U.S.-Mexico border.
He is the first Cabinet official to be impeached in nearly 150 years and now faces a possible trial in the Democrat-controlled Senate, which is expected to acquit him.
The measure passed by just one vote – 214 to 213 after three Republicans, Reps. Ken Buck, R-Colo., Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., and Tom McClintock, R-Calif., joined Democrats to oppose it saying it would be ‘unconstitutional’ and set a ‘bad precedent’ for the GOP in the future.
‘History will not look kindly on House Republicans for their blatant act of unconstitutional partisanship,’ scathed President Biden after the vote.
‘Giving up on real solutions right when they are needed most in order to play politics is not what the American people expect from their leaders,’ he wrote in a statement. ‘Congress needs to act to give me, Secretary Mayorkas, and my administration the tools and resources needed to address the situation at the border.’
There have been millions of illegal migrant encounters by U.S. border officials since Biden took office, and around 10,000 were entering every day in December – a history shattering statistic.
House Republicans finally voted to impeach Homeland Security Sec. Alejandro Mayorkas on their second attempt after last week’s spectacular failure. The articles accuse Mayorkas of failing to uphold U.S. immigration law and lying to Congress about the state of the U.S.-Mexico border
There have been over one million illegal migrant encounters by U.S. border officials since Biden took office – a history shattering statistic
After the vote Homeland Security Chair Mark Green and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., who worked to get the articles to the floor, gave each other a cheery hug on the House floor.
Asked if he was concerned who would replace Mayorkas if he were removed from office, Green told reporters: ‘Of course I am, but if that person doesn’t do his job well, we will impeach his a** too.’
Two Republicans – Florida Reps. Maria Salazar and Brian Mast, and two Democrats, Judy Chu, Calif., and Lois Frankel, Fla., missed the vote.
The Department of Homeland Security immediately tore into House Republicans for impeaching the secretary while also killing the Senate’s immigration and foreign aid deal.
‘House Republicans will be remembered by history for trampling on the Constitution for political gain rather than working to solve the serious challenges at our border,’ said DHS spokesperson Mia Ehrenberg.
‘While Secretary Mayorkas was helping a group of Republican and Democratic Senators develop bipartisan solutions to strengthen border security and get needed resources for enforcement, House Republicans have wasted months with this baseless, unconstitutional impeachment.’
Republicans tried to pass the resolution last week, but it failed because they misjudged the number of Democrats who would be in attendance with Majority Leader Steve Scalise out for cancer treatment.
They even brought back Rep. Hal Rogers, R-Ky., in a full chest and neck brace after a car crash to vote. But Democrats rolled in an unexpected surprise in the middle of the first impeachment vote: Rep. Al Green, D-Texas.
Seated in a wheelchair and still dressed in his scrubs with no shoes, Green had just had an operation, but at the last second made it to cast the final vote against impeaching the DHS secretary.
After last week’s embarrassing misfire, House Republicans rushed to pass the resolution Tuesday – hours before the results of the race to replace ex-Rep. George Santos in a special election in New York.
If the Democrat wins, it will shrink their slim 219 to 212 majority down by another crucial vote.
Scalise, R-La., returned to Washington after receiving autologous stem cell treatment for blood cancer multiple myeloma. He is now in ‘complete remission.’
‘The only way to stop the border invasion is to replace the Biden administration at the ballot box,’ McClintock wrote on X. ‘Swapping one leftist for another is a fantasy, solves nothing, excuses Biden’s culpability, and unconstitutionally expands impeachment that someday will bite Republicans.’
Moments after the impeachment defeat last week, a vote to offer Israel $17.6 billion failed to garner the two-thirds majority it needed to pass under suspension of the rules.
The articles specifically cite Mayorkas breaking U.S. law that mandates detention of migrants who lack authority to be in the country, exceeding his parole authority by allowing migrants to live and work in the U.S. while they wait for asylum claims to be heard.
Mayorkas has denied such claims and Democrats insist he is only carrying out the policy of the Biden administration.
Border patrol tallied a record 249,785 arrests on the Mexican border in December, up nearly a third from November and 13 percent higher than the previous record in December 2022.
The last Cabinet secretary to be impeached was Secretary of War William Belknap in 150 years.
Mayorkas blamed the ‘broken system’ on Congress failing to act – after Republicans killed an immigration and foreign aid deal negotiated in the Senate.
‘It certainly is a crisis and, well, we don’t bear responsibility for a broken system,’ Mayorkas said. ‘And we’re doing a tremendous amount within that broken system. But fundamentally, fundamentally, Congress is the only one who can fix it.’
Meanwhile Rep. Gallagher, one of the Republicans who voted against impeachment, said over the weekend he would not seek re-election at the end of his term.
‘Impeachment would not only fail to resolve Mr. Biden’s border crisis but also set a dangerous new precedent that will be used against future Republican administrations,’ Gallagher wrote in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece about the impeachment effort.
Impeachment only needed a simple majority to refer the articles to the Senate, where the upper chamber can vote against opening a trial with a simple majority.
Still, Republicans have already named its impeachment managers to make the case for impeachment in front of the Senate: Homeland Security Chair Mark Green, Texas, Foreign Affairs Chair Michael McCaul, Texas, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Ga., Ben Cline, Va., Michael Guest, Miss., Andy Biggs, Ariz., Andrew Garbarino, N.Y., August Pfluger, Texas, Harriet Hageman, Wyo., Laurel Lee, Fla.
But even conservative Senate Republicans have deemed the effort futile.
Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., called it ‘the dumbest exercise and use of time’ last week.
Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., said impeachment was a ‘waste’ unless it’s President Biden and Republicans should be more focused on making their case to the public in an election year.
House Republicans roundly rejected the Senate’s bipartisan immigration and foreign aid deal.
Migrants try to cut a barbed wire fence installed to prevent the entry of illegal migrants across the Rio Bravo/Grande from Ciudad Juarez, state of Chihuahua, Mexico on February 12, 2024
The measure passed by just one vote – 214 to 213 after three Republicans, Reps. Ken Buck, R-Colo., Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., and Tom McClintock, R-Calif., joined Democrats to oppose it
‘What’s rich to me is the speaker says the [border] bill in the Senate is… dead on arrival. And then they proceed impeaching a cabinet secretary, which is obviously dead on arrival,’ Cramer said.
‘It’ll be dead on arrival when it comes over, but it’ll still be the same policy even if Mayorkas left, because we’ve got the same president,’ said Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., who spent months negotiating the foreign aid and immigration deal with Democrats.
Earlier on Tuesday the Senate passed a $95 billion foreign aid deal that includes money for Ukraine, Israel, Gaza and Taiwan — with the immigration provisions stripped out.
Speaker Mike Johnson said he does not plan to put the package on the House floor, calling it ‘insufficient’ without border security measures saying the Senate has ‘failed to meet the moment.’
‘Now, in the absence of having received any single border policy change from the Senate, the House will have to continue to work its own will on these important matters,’ Johnson continued. ‘America deserves better than the Senate’s status quo.’
Mayorkas said on Sunday he is not deterred by the GOP’s attacks on him.
‘They’re baseless allegations, Kristen, and that’s why I really am not distracted by them and focused on the work of the Department of Homeland Security,’ he said on NBC’s ‘Meet the Press’ with Kristen Welker.
‘I’ve got a busy day today. After the show, a busy day of work. I’ve got a busy day Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and so on.’