The US House voted on Tuesday to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, with the Republican majority determined to punish the Biden administration over its handling of the US-Mexico border after failing last week in a politically embarrassing setback.
The evening roll call proved tight, with Speaker Mike Johnson’s threadbare GOP majority unable to handle many defectors or absences in the face of staunch Democratic opposition to impeaching Mayorkas, the first Cabinet secretary facing charges in nearly 150 years.
In a historic rebuke, the House impeached Mayorkas 214-213. With the return of Majority Leader Steve Scalise to bolster the GOP’s numbers after being away from Washington for cancer care and a Northeastern storm impacting some others, Republicans recouped — despite dissent from their own ranks.
President Joe Biden said in a statement released after the vote, “History will not look kindly on House Republicans for their blatant act of unconstitutional partisanship that has targeted an honourable public servant in order to play petty political games.”
The GOP effort to impeach Mayorkas over his handling of the southern border has taken on an air of political desperation as Republicans struggle to make good on their priorities.
Mayorkas faced two articles of impeachment filed by the Homeland Security Committee arguing that he “willfully and systematically” refused to enforce existing immigration laws and that he breached the public trust by lying to Congress and saying the border was secure.
But critics of the impeachment effort said the charges against Mayorkas amount to a policy dispute over Biden’s border policy, hardly rising to the Constitution’s bar of high crimes and misdemeanours.
The House had initially launched an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden over his son’s business dealings, but instead turned its attention to Mayorkas after Trump ally Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia pushed the debate forward following the panel’s months-long investigation.
