After a two-month delay, House Republicans on Tuesday introduced articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas to the Senate, calling for a full trial of the first sitting Cabinet member to be impeached by Congress.
Constitutional scholars say the case against Mayorkas is baseless, and Democrats who control the Senate have indicated they want to shorten the lengthy trial and support a speedy vote to dismiss the charges against him. . But Republicans moved forward with a provision accusing the secretary of intentionally refusing to enforce border laws and betraying the public's trust.
“For nearly the past four years, we have seen Secretary Mayorkas intentionally cede operational control of the border to drug cartels,” Speaker Mike Johnson said Tuesday, urging the Senate to take up the issue, saying that the country's southern Describing the chaos at the border, he said: case.
“We have seen an explosion of terrorist encounters at the border,” he added. “We've seen gang members and people with criminal records being released into our country. We've seen fentanyl flood across our borders.”
He accused Mayorkas and President Biden of willfully neglecting their border security responsibilities.
“He and Joe Biden engineered this disaster,” Johnson said. “They allowed it. They obviously wanted it.”
On Tuesday afternoon, the 11 House Republicans nominated to prosecute the case against Mr. Mayorkas held a ceremonial walk across the Capitol to file their charges, standing on the floor as all senators sat silently at their desks. read out the indictment.
The Republican lawsuit against Mr. Mayorkas does not accuse him of any specific crime, but rather seeks to enforce policies that Republicans oppose and remove administration officials who they say are derelict in their duties. This is a far cry from the “high crimes and misdemeanors'' stipulated in the Constitution as grounds for impeachment.
The House passed the provision in February over unanimous Democratic opposition, after initially failing because not enough Republicans were present in the closely divided chamber to pass the bill. They pushed through and narrowly approved this provision. Since then, Republican leaders have delayed sending Mr. Mayorkas to the Senate and struggled to find the right time to begin the process, making efforts to remove him almost certain to fail. It has become.
A two-thirds majority would be needed to convict him in the Senate, a number that is unattainable given Democrats' staunch opposition.
Senior Senate Republicans and Democrats were negotiating Tuesday how to structure the trial, which is expected to officially begin Wednesday afternoon when senators will be sworn in as jurors. The two parties had discussed allowing Republicans to debate and file a series of procedural challenges Wednesday before Schumer moved to dismiss the two charges. However, such an agreement would require the participation of all lawmakers, including the dead on trial, and it was unclear whether Republicans would seek to extend the trial.
Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. and the majority leader, said Tuesday that “impeachment should not be used to resolve policy disagreements” before the charges are handed down. “Talk about a terrible precedent. This is going to set a terrible precedent for Congress. Every time there's a policy disagreement in the House, they send it over here and tie up the Senate and have an impeachment trial. That's absurd. It's an abuse of the process.”
At a press conference after the article ran, Republicans in both chambers dared Democrats to allow a trial that highlights issues affecting the border.
“We're ready, Mr. Schumer,” said Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona, one of the impeachment managers. “I'm ready.”
For his part, Mayorkas has spent several months essentially ignoring the incident and continuing to work. He negotiated a border security deal with both Senate Republicans and Democrats, but it fell apart after former President Donald J. Trump opposed it.
“When I say I'm not focused on the impeachment process, I actually am,” Mayorkas said in an interview. “Let me just say this: I hope it doesn't take away my time from my work.”
On Tuesday, Mayorkas began his day at the Capitol talking about the agency's budget request, giving the department more resources to enforce border laws, hire more staff and pass the negotiated bill. asked Congress to provide the
He said that in the past 11 months, his agency has deported or deported more than 630,000 people who had no legal basis to stay.
“But our immigration system is fundamentally broken,” he says. “Only Congress can fix it. Congress hasn't updated our immigration laws since 1996, 28 years ago.”
The top Republican in the Senate, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, denounced Schumer's plan to dismiss the lawsuit.
“The Senate has never before agreed to a motion to introduce articles of impeachment,” McConnell said. “That doesn't apply to officials of either party. Not once.”
He added: “It would be a violation of the dignity of the Senate to ignore our clear responsibilities and to fail to give the charges being heard today the due consideration they deserve.”
McConnell voted in favor of an unsuccessful 2021 effort to dismiss Trump's second impeachment charge over the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol before the Senate trial. was not mentioned.
Among the Republicans Mr. Johnson appointed as impeachment managers are Rep. Mark E. Greene of Tennessee, chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, and Marjorie Taylor, who led the impeachment conference against Mr. Mayorkas. There's also Congressman Greene (Georgia).
Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Mia Ehrenberg slammed the impeachment effort.
“Despite warnings from Republican members that this baseless impeachment effort 'perverts the Constitution,' House Republicans continue to ignore the facts and waste even more time on this bogus impeachment in the Senate,” he said in a statement. “This is damaging the Constitution,” he said.
