The United States House of Representatives voted Tuesday to impeach Department of Homeland Security Sec. Alejandro Mayorkas.
After failing to impeach Mayorkas a week ago, as reported by The Dallas Express, House GOP members eeked out a 214-213 vote in favor of articles of impeachment. Mayorkas is just the second cabinet official to be impeached in U.S. history.
“Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas deserved to be impeached. 9 million illegal aliens have entered our country since President Biden and Secretary Mayorkas took office, including 300 people who match the terror watch list,” Rep. August Pfluger (R-TX) said in a statement.
Not all GOP members supported the effort. Three voted no, including Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA). All Democrats voted against impeachment.
“Swapping one leftist for another is a fantasy, solves nothing, excuses Biden’s culpability, and unconstitutionally expands impeachment that someday will bite Republicans,” McClintock said last week, reported Fox News.
The House moved forward two articles against Mayorkas. The first is for refusing to comply with federal immigration law, while the second accuses him of violating the public trust. House Committee on Homeland Security Chairman Mark E. Green (R-TN) said in December that transcripts from interviews with Border Patrol chief officers demonstrated the failures of the Biden administration and DHS efforts under Mayorkas.
“Just one look at these transcripts and you know Border Patrol leadership sees firsthand that Secretary Mayorkas’ mass-parole and catch-and-release policies have not only led to the release of millions of inadmissible aliens into our communities but have incentivized millions more to come to our borders with the knowledge that this administration will quickly release many of them into the interior,” Green said in a December 8 press release.
The vote to impeach is likely to fail when the issue is taken up by the Senate, however. Impeachment would require a two-thirds majority vote and Democrats are unlikely to join Republicans on the issue. Still, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said the motion will be taken up for a vote later this month.
One possibility is that the Senate will vote to move the articles to a special committee where it would be unlikely to move before the next election, according to The Hill.
Biden slammed Republicans following the vote while also pointing out that GOP members scuttled a bipartisan border security bill last week, according to The Hill.
“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,” Biden said in a statement following the vote, reported The Hill.
The only other cabinet member to be impeached was William Belknap, the secretary of war under President Ulysses S. Grant. He was impeached in 1876 by the House after an apparent pattern of corruption and cronyism was uncovered. The Senate failed to reach a two-thirds majority in that effort as well.