- Mike Johnson said Republicans will deliver articles of impeachment against Mayorkas next month.
- House Republicans have long delayed presenting their impeachment articles to the Senate.
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Only one other time in history has the House impeached a Cabinet official.
House Republicans are finally ready to proceed with Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ impeachment trial.
House Speaker Mike Johnson announced that a group of GOP lawmakers will formally deliver its two articles of impeachment on April 10.
House lawmakers narrowly voted to impeach Mayorkas on February 13. They have since delayed the process amid a debate over government funding and other matters.
House Republicans approved charges based on a failure to enforce immigration laws and to cooperate with their various probes.
Mayorkas and the Biden administration have strongly denied wrongdoing. Three Republicans voted against impeaching Mayorkas, arguing that the GOP was setting a potentially dangerous precedent by impeaching a Cabinet official over what could be viewed as policy disputes. Due to the opposition and their narrow majority, Republicans failed to impeach Mayorkas on their first try.
Johnson called for the Senate to hold a full trial on Mayorkas, who is just the second Cabinet secretary in history to be impeached. It’s unlikely Johnson will be pleased with the Senate’s response.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has called the impeachment a “sham” and “a new low for House Republicans.” Democrats, who narrowly control the Senate, could move to dismiss the trial quickly. They could also punt the question to a special committee. Either tactic would not require Republican votes, though even some Senate Republicans have expressed unease with the House’s case.
If Republicans want to force a full trial, they will have to pressure Senate Democrats facing tough reelection campaigns to vote against a quick dismissal. Republicans have hoped a trial could give them a big platform to challenge Biden’s immigration policies before the election.
No one expects Mayorkas to be convicted, which requires two-thirds support.
Why are Republicans attacking Mayorkas?
As Homeland Security secretary, Mayorkas oversees a vast agency that includes US Customs and Border Protection. As a result, the GOP has tried to make him the poster boy for what they view as Biden’s failed immigration policies.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, who recently led a Republican delegation to the border, has repeatedly said the situation is “a humanitarian catastrophe” with major national security concerns. Rep. Mark Green, who chairs the Homeland Security Committee, has argued that Mayorkas has violated his oath of office. Green has gone as far as to say, “Hamas can walk just right in.”
Politically, Republicans also view the issue as a winner. A CBS poll earlier this year found that views of Biden’s handling of immigration are at an all-time low. Democratic mayors and governors have also complained to the White House in the wake of Republicans sending waves of migrants to their cities.
What happens next?
The 11 House Republican impeachment managers, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, will be formally escorted across the Capitol before arriving in the Senate.
According to Fox News, Schumer’s office intends for senators to be formally sworn in on April 11. At that time, senators could then move to dismiss the case quickly.
How is this different from presidential impeachments?
The biggest difference is that Chief Justice John Roberts will not preside over the trial. The US Constitution only requires the chief justice’s presence when the president is impeached.
Roberts did not preside over Trump’s second trial as Trump was no longer president when senators moved forward with the trial on February 9, 2021. Then-Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), president pro tempore of the Senate at the time, presided over the brief trial.
In this case, Leahy’s successor, Sen. Patty Murray, a Washington state Democrat, will preside.
What is the situation at the border like?
Last year ended with what was an undeniable crisis at the border, a record number of encounters, 10,000 people per day along the border.
“The numbers we are seeing now are unprecedented,” Troy Miller, the acting commissioner of US Customs and Border Protection, told The Washington Post.
US Customs and Border Protection said at the time more than 2.3 million migrants had been released into the United States at the southern border under Biden’s watch, The Post reported. Republicans often cite the more than 6 million people that have been taken into custody, a much different measure.
The situation is different now. “Arrests for illegal crossings on the US border with Mexico fell by half in January,” the Associated Press reported.
There is some debate about how to compare Biden’s record. Politifact previously pointed out that there are some caveats to comparing the record-high influx under Biden to the past. The context is important, especially when comparing Trump and Biden administration data, which measures “encounters” as opposed to “apprehensions.”
Immigration patterns, including who is trying to come into the United States and how often they attempt to cross the border, have also changed. As NPR previously pointed out, the number of migrants making repeat attempts has skyrocketed. This means that when it comes to encounters, a single person could be responsible for multiple encounters if they repeatedly try to enter the United States.
What is the White House saying?
The White House has said the US immigration system has been “broken for decades.” Officials have repeatedly pointed out that at the same time that Republicans are trying to impeach Mayorkas, he is working with senators from both parties on what would be the largest changes to US immigration laws in years.
Biden quickly blasted the impeachment after the vote on February 13.
“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 released by the White House.
Has a Cabinet secretary been impeached before?
In its entire history, the House has only ever impeached one Cabinet secretary: former Secretary of War William Belknap under the Grant administration. Lawmakers accused Belknap of taking bribes to finance a lavish lifestyle while living on a meager government salary. In the face of his likely ouster, the former Civil War general rushed to the White House to hand President Ulysses S. Grant his resignation.
The House still impeached Belknap, though he was acquitted during a Senate trial. The core of Belknap’s defense was that he was technically a private citizen both at the time of his impeachment (by just minutes) and during his monthslong trial. If that sounds familiar, it’s because former President Donald Trump and most Senate Republicans made a similar defense during Trump’s trial following the January 6 Capitol riot.
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