WASHINGTON – The House Homeland Security Committee approved two articles of impeachment on Jan 31 against Mr Alejandro Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary, over his handling of the south-western border, as Republicans raced forward with a partisan indictment of President Joe Biden’s immigration policies.
In an 18-15 party-line vote, the panel endorsed a resolution charging Mr Mayorkas with refusing to uphold the law and breaching the public trust by failing to choke off a surge of migrants across the United States border with Mexico.
It set the stage for a House vote as soon as next week on an impeachment that would be an extraordinary escalation of a political feud between Republicans and Democrats over immigration, further elevating the issue at the start of an election year in which it is expected to be a main focus.
The GOP was ploughing forward without producing evidence that Mr Mayorkas committed a crime or acts of corruption, arguing instead that the Biden administration border policies he implemented ran afoul of the law. Legal scholars, including prominent conservatives, have argued that the effort is a perversion of the constitutional power of impeachment, and Democrats remained solidly opposed.
If impeached, Mr Mayorkas would become only the second Cabinet secretary to be indicted by the House of Representatives in US history, and the first in nearly 150 years.
The charges would be all but certain to collapse in the Democratic-controlled Senate, where a two-thirds majority would be required to convict and remove Mr Mayorkas. But they would force an election-year trial that would fuel what promises to be a charged political debate this year over how to handle a surge of migration into the US, and who should be blamed for what both parties’ leaders now consider an immigration crisis.
An all-day meeting of the Homeland Security Committee on Jan 30 that dragged into the wee hours of Jan 31 offered a glimpse of the bitter tenor of that fight. Republicans laid out their case against the secretary, and Democrats used every tool at their disposal to halt the impeachment or amend the charges, failing repeatedly on a series of party-line votes.
Republicans contend that the Biden administration’s policies – and Mr Mayorkas’ decisions in particular – have attracted waves of migrants to the country and admitted individuals who could pose a danger to national security. NYTIMES
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