A panel of the GOP-led House released on Sunday two articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over his handling of the border crisis.
The first article says Mayorkas has “willfully and systemically refused to comply with Federal immigration laws,” and the second claims the secretary “breached the public trust” by making false statements and “knowingly obstructed lawful oversight” of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Members of the Homeland Security Committee are scheduled to meet on Tuesday morning to consider the articles of impeachment. If one or both articles pass through the panel, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said the House would vote on whether to impeach Mayorkas “as soon as possible thereafter.”
“Having exhausted all other options to hold Secretary Mayorkas accountable, it is unmistakably clear that Congress must exercise its constitutional duty and impeach him,” Chairman Mark Green (R-TN) said in a post to X on Sunday.
Having exhausted all other options to hold Secretary Mayorkas accountable, it is unmistakably clear that Congress must exercise its constitutional duty and impeach him. pic.twitter.com/t8MpwAQ0tE
— Rep. Mark Green (@RepMarkGreen) January 28, 2024
House Republicans face a tight margin as they contend with vacancies and absences within their own ranks, but Green said last weekend that he believes there will be enough support to ultimately impeach Mayorkas when it comes to a House floor vote. Still, the effort faces long odds in the Democrat-controlled Senate.
Rep. Bennie Thompson (R-MS), the top Democrat on the Homeland Security Committee, encouraged the House to reject what he called a “sham” resolution. “What is glaringly missing from these articles is any real charge or even a shred of evidence of high crimes or misdemeanors — the Constitutional standard for impeachment,” he added in a statement on Sunday.
When pressed on “Fox News Sunday” on the prospect of the impeachment articles going nowhere in the Senate, Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) said “I think it’s important we respond to the American people” after pinning millions of border encounters, including people on the terrorist watchlist, and fentanyl deaths on Mayorkas.
There is a bipartisan appetite in the House for changing the status quo, even if there is disagreement on how to address the border crisis amid a surge in crossings and blue cities around the country getting overwhelmed with migrants. Fourteen House Democrats recently broke ranks and joined with most Republicans in voting to denounce the Biden administration’s “open-borders policies.”
Several interim reports have been released during the Homeland Security Committee’s probe into Mayorkas, and hearings wrapped up earlier this month. Members of the Senate are working to hash out a border deal, with the help of Mayorkas, while the impeachment effort comes to a resolution.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE DAILYWIRE+ APP
DHS released a memo to reporters on Sunday that argued Mayorkas has “upheld and enforced” border security and immigration laws and seeks to refute “false allegations” of lying about operational control during testimony and dereliction of duty.
“This markup is just more of the same political games from House Homeland Security Committee (CHS) Republicans. They don’t want to fix the problem; they want to campaign on it,” the memo said.
“That’s why they have undermined efforts to achieve bipartisan solutions and ignored the facts, legal scholars and experts, and even the Constitution itself in their quest to baselessly impeach Secretary Mayorkas,” it added. “This farce of an impeachment is a distraction from other vital national security priorities and the work Congress should be doing to actually fix our broken immigration laws.”