In an evening roll call, the US House of Representatives voted to impeach Alejandro Mayorkas, the secretary of homeland security under President Joe Biden. The charges brought against Mayorkas were explicitly political, centering on the conditions at the southern border, as Republicans sought to leverage the issue for political advantage in an election year.
Speaker Mike Johnson faced a tight vote, navigating his threadbare Republican majority against staunch Democratic opposition to impeaching Mayorkas. This marked a historic event, as Mayorkas became the first cabinet secretary in almost 150 years to face such charges. The House’s historic rebuke resulted in a narrow impeachment verdict of 214-213.
A trio of Republicans, namely Mike Gallagher from Wisconsin, Ken Buck from Colorado, and Tom McClintock from California, broke party lines, asserting that the charges against Mayorkas did not meet the constitutional threshold. Joe Biden, responding to the vote, expressed his disapproval, stating, “History will not look kindly on House Republicans for their blatant act of unconstitutional partisanship that has targeted an honorable public servant in order to play petty political games.”
Mayorkas, responding to allegations last weekend, dismissed them as “baseless” and emphasized his focus on the Department of Homeland Security’s work. In a statement, he underscored his admiration for the department’s 216,000 men and women dedicated to serving the American public.
Notably, Mayorkas is not the sole target of House Republicans, who have initiated impeachment proceedings against other Biden administration officials, including Vice President Kamala Harris, Attorney General Merrick Garland, FBI Director Christopher Wray, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. However, these attempts are yet to materialize, unlike the successful impeachment of Mayorkas.
Mayorkas, absent from the impeachment proceedings, attributed the border crisis to Congress’s failure to update immigration laws amid a period of global migration. While acknowledging the crisis at the border, he contended that the Biden administration did not bear sole responsibility for a broken system, emphasizing the need for congressional action to effect meaningful change.
The recent failure of an immigration and border deal in the Senate, following opposition from former President Donald Trump, further underscored the challenges faced by Congress in addressing these issues. Homeland security spokesperson Mia Ehrenberg criticized House Republicans, asserting that they would be remembered for prioritizing political gain over constitutional principles and neglecting the serious challenges at the border.
“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,” Ehrenberg stated in a press release.
