UNITED STATES NEWS

House GOP takes party-line vote toward Mayorkas impeachment as border becomes campaign issue

Jan 31, 2024, 6:15 AM | Updated: 6:19 am

Mayorkas impeachment...

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas testifies on Capitol Hill, Nov. 8, 2023, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

(AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans voted along party lines early Wednesday to move toward impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for a “willful and systematic” refusal to enforce immigration laws as border security becomes a top 2024 election issue.

The Homeland Security Committee debated all day Tuesday and well into the night before recommending two articles of impeachment against Mayorkas to the full House, a rare charge against a Cabinet official unseen in nearly 150 years, as Republicans make GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump’s hard-line deportation approach to immigration their own.

The committee Republicans voted in favor, while the Democrats unified against, 18-15.

“We cannot allow this man to remain in office any longer,” said Chairman Mark Green, R-Tenn.

The impeachment articles charge that Mayorkas “refused to comply with Federal immigration laws” amid a record surge of migrants and that he has “breached the public trust” in his claims to Congress that the U.S.-Mexico border is secure.

The full House could vote on Mayorkas’ impeachment as soon as next week. If approved, the charges would go to the Senate for a trial, though senators may first convene a special committee for consideration.

With an unusual personal appeal, Mayorkas — who is deep in Senate talks on a border security package — wrote in a letter to the committee that it should be working with the Biden administration to update the nation’s “broken and outdated” immigration laws for the 21st century, an era of record global migration.

“We need a legislative solution and only Congress can provide it,” Mayorkas wrote in the pointed letter to the panel’s chairman.

Rarely has a Cabinet member faced impeachment’s bar of “high crimes and misdemeanors,” and Democrats on the panel dismissed the proceedings as a stunt and a sham that could set a chilling precedent for other civil servants snared in policy disputes by lawmakers who disagree with the president’s approach.

“This is a terrible day for the committee, the United States, the Constitution and our great country,” said Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the committee’s ranking Democrat.

Referring to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign slogan, Thompson said the “MAGA-led impeachment of Secretary Mayorkas is a baseless sham.”

The House’s proceedings against Mayorkas have created an oddly split-screen Capitol Hill, as the Senate works deliberately with the secretary on a bipartisan border security package that is now on life support.

The package being negotiated by the senators with Mayorkas could emerge as the most consequential bipartisan immigration proposal in a decade. Or it could collapse in political failure as Republicans, and some Democrats, run from the effort.

Trump, on the campaign trail and in private talks, has tried to squelch the deal. “I’d rather have no bill than a bad bill,” Trump said over the weekend in Las Vegas.

President Joe Biden, in his own campaign remarks in South Carolina, said if Congress sends him a bill with emergency authority he’ll “shut down the border right now” to get migration under control.

“I’ve done all I can do,” Biden told reporters Tuesday before departing for a campaign-related trip to Florida. “Give me the power” through legislation, which he said is something he’s asked “from the very day I got in office.”

The Republicans are focused on the secretary’s handling of the southern border, which has experienced a increasing number of migrants over the past year, many seeking asylum in the U.S., at a time when drug cartels are using the border with Mexico to traffic people and ship deadly fentanyl into the states.

Rep, Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., a Trump ally often mentioned as a possible vice presidential pick, called it an “invasion.”

Republicans contend that the Biden administration and Mayorkas either got rid of policies in place under Trump that had controlled migration or enacted policies of their own that encouraged migrants from around the world to come to the U.S. illegally via the southern border.

House Speaker Mike Johnson said Biden and Mayorkas have “created a catastrophe” on the border, and he criticized the emerging Senate package. The GOP leader said the president is now trying to turn the blame back on Congress for failing to update immigration laws.

The Republicans also accused Mayorkas of lying to Congress, pointing to comments about the border being secure or about vetting of Afghans airlifted to the U.S. after military withdrawal from their country.

“It’s high time” for impeachment, said Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, who called Mayorkas the “architect” of the border problems. “He has what’s coming to him.”

The House impeachment hearings against Mayorkas sprinted ahead in January while the Republicans’ separate impeachment inquiry into Biden over the business dealings over his son Hunter Biden dragged.

Democrats argue that Mayorkas is acting under his legal authorities at the department and that the criticisms against him do not rise to the level of impeachment.

House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York called the proceedings a “political stunt” ordered up by Trump and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., a Trump ally, who pushed the resolution forward.

During the hearing, Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., pointed to Trump’s comments echoing Adolf Hitler that immigrants are “poisoning the blood” of the U.S. and to his proposals for militarizing the border as extreme, arguing the impeachment proceedings were “all about trying to get Donald Trump re-elected.”

Debate dragged into the night as Democrats tried and failed to amend the resolution.

Mayorkas never testified on his own behalf during the rushed impeachment proceedings — he and the committee couldn’t agree on a date — but in his letter he drew on his own background as a child brought to the U.S. by his parents fleeing Cuba and on his career spent prosecuting criminals.

“Your false accusations do not rattle me and do not divert me” from public service, he wrote.

Green, the Republican committee chair, disparaged Mayorkas’s letter as an “11th-hour response” to the committee that was “inadequate and unbecoming of a Cabinet secretary.”

It’s unclear if Republicans will have the support from their ranks to go through with the impeachment vote in the full House, especially with their slim majority and with Democrats expected to vote against it.

Last year, eight House Republicans voted to shelve the impeachment resolution proposed by Greene, though many of them have since signaled being open to it. The committee approved a revised version.

Legal experts, including Jonathan Turley and Alan Dershowitz, have said the criticisms of Mayorkas do not rise to impeachable offenses.

If the House does agree to impeach Mayorkas, the charges would next to go the Senate. In 1876, the House impeached Defense Secretary William Belknap over kickbacks in government contracts, but the Senate acquitted him in a trial.

This is an updated version of a story originally published Jan. 30, 2024.

United States News

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris waves as she boards Air Force Two, Fri...

Associated Press

Harris is releasing a report on her health and poking Trump for failing to do likewise

WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris plans to release a report Saturday on her medical history and health that a senior campaign aide said would show “she possesses the physical and mental resiliency” needed to serve as president. Harris’ advisers hope to use the moment to draw a contrast with Republican Donald Trump, who […]

1 hour ago

Associated Press

Children and adults transported to a Pennsylvania hospital after ingesting ‘toxic mushrooms’

PEACH BOTTOM TOWNSHIP, Pa. (AP) — Children and adults were transported to a hospital in Pennsylvania Friday night after being sickened by mushrooms, authorities said. Emergency medical personnel responded to a report around 9:30 p.m. of 11 people becoming ill after ingesting the mushrooms in Peach Bottom Township, the Delta-Cardiff Volunteer Company Station 57 said […]

2 hours ago

Sheraton Grand Hotel workers Lupe Ventura, center, and Alex Ivanitsky, right, who are represented b...

Associated Press

Should California’s minimum wage be $18? Voters will soon decide

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Voters will decide in November whether California should raise its hourly minimum wage to $18 by 2026 and pay workers what would be the highest statewide minimum wage in the country. That would be on par with Hawaii, where workers are on track to get paid at least $18 per hour […]

3 hours ago

Associated Press

Wife-carrying championship victory brings beer and cash

NEWRY, Maine (AP) — Some partners are carried over the threshold. Others are carried over a muddy obstacle course. Contestants are hoisting their partners and embarking on a muddy 278-yard (254-meter) race on Saturday, splashing through water, jumping over logs and trudging through muck during the North American Wife Carrying Championship. There is nothing dainty […]

6 hours ago

This image made from video provided by Donna Gail Shaw shows a view from a trail camera of a brown ...

Associated Press

It’s not just Fat Bear Week in Alaska. Trail cameras are also capturing wolves, moose and more

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Millions of people worldwide tuned in for a remote Alaska national park’s “Fat Bear Week” celebration this month, as captivating livestream camera footage caught the chubby predators chomping on salmon and fattening up for the winter. But in the vast state known for its abundant wildlife, the magical and sometimes violent […]

6 hours ago

Workers install a metal gate that will prevent customers from entering a MetroLink platform without...

Associated Press

Transit systems are targeting fare evaders to win back riders leery about crime

CHICAGO (AP) — Dominique Davenport was waiting for a ride home after getting off the MetroLink light rail one night in East St. Louis, Illinois, when he heard an argument followed by gunshots behind him on the station’s platform. A teenager had been killed, the latest act of violence for a St. Louis-area transit system […]

6 hours ago

Sponsored Articles

...

Dr. Shanyn Lancaster, Family & Sports Medicine physician, Midwestern University Comprehensive Care Clinic – Central Phoenix

Exercise is truly your best medicine

“You never slow down, you never grow old”. – Tom Petty

...

Day & Night Air Conditioning, Heating and Plumbing

Beat the heat, ensure your AC unit is summer-ready

With temperatures starting to rise across the Valley, now is a great time to be sure your AC unit is ready to withstand the sweltering summer heat.

...

Condor Airlines

Condor Airlines can get you smoothly from Phoenix to Frankfurt on new A330-900neo airplane

Adventure Awaits! And there's no better way to experience the vacation of your dreams than traveling with Condor Airlines.

House GOP takes party-line vote toward Mayorkas impeachment as border becomes campaign issue