House Votes To Impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas

Ted Johnson
·3-min read

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas was impeached by one vote in the House this evening, making him the first sitting cabinet member to face such a process of removal.

The vote was 214-213. House Republicans failed in their efforts last week to Mayorkas, largely over the way that he has handled the crisis at the southern border.

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House Speaker Mike Johnson said that Mayorkas “has willfully and consistently refused to comply with federal immigration laws, fueling the worst border catastrophe in American history.”

Mayorkas now faces a Senate trial, where he expected to survive given Democratic control.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said in a statement, “This sham impeachment effort is another embarrassment for House Republicans. The one and only reason for this impeachment is for Speaker Johnson to further appease Donald Trump.”

Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO) told CNN that the impeachment “sets a terrible precedent,” as he argued that the move will open the floodgates for Democrats to use the same tactics to try to get rid of cabinet members of Republican administrations. He said that Mayorkas’ conduct fell short of “high crimes and misdemeanors,” the constitutional threshold for impeachment. Buck was joined by two other Republicans, Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA) and Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) in voting against impeachment.

But Republicans have been hammering the Biden administration for the spike in the number of migrants crossing the border, and the impeachment makes a statement in the midst of an election year.

Last week, a bipartisan group of Senators unveiled a compromise bill that would have expanded border enforcement, but other Republicans began to oppose the proposal after Donald Trump announced his opposition to it. Trump has said that the border bill “would be another Gift to the Radical Left Democrats” and would help them politically.

The Senate instead removed the border portions of a $95 billion security package to provide funding for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. It passed in a 70-29 vote in the early morning hours today, but Johnson has indicated that he opposes the package because it does not include border provisions. Yet he and other House Republicans refused to consider the Senate’s border bill compromise when it was unveiled last week.

Earlier today, President Joe Biden urged Johnson to bring the $95 billion security funding to the floor. In remarks at the White House, the president said, “You got to decide: Are you going to stand up for freedom, or are you going to side with terror and tyranny? Are you going to stand with Ukraine or are you going to stand with Putin? Will you stand with America or Trump?”

Biden blasted Trump for comments he made at a rally over the weekend, in which he said that as president, he would not have the U.S. protect NATO countries under threat of a Russian invasion if they had not paid their dues. Trump also said that when it came to Russia, “I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want.”

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