House Republicans on Tuesday failed to impeach homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, a spectacular defeat of an effort that Democrats denounced as a purely partisan exercise meant to boost the electoral prospects of Donald Trump.
In a vote of 216-214, four Republicans joined all Democrats in voting against the two articles of impeachment against the secretary.
Related: ‘Show a little courage’: Biden attacks Republicans for ‘caving’ to Trump on US-Mexico border security bill
The historic vote would have marked the first time since 1876 that the House has impeached a cabinet official, but with hours to go before a scheduled evening vote its prospects were unclear. But Democrats have retorted that Republicans were abusing the impeachment process to attack one of Joe Biden’s cabinet members during a crucial election year, in which immigration could play a decisive role.
With Republicans in control of the House by a whisker-thin margin, and Democrats uniformly opposed, they can afford only a few defections. Two Republicans have already announced their opposition and a handful more appeared undecided as the House proceeded to debate the charges against Mayorkas.
Republicans sought to impeach Mayorkas on charges that he willfully refused to enforce immigration law, resulting in record levels of migration at the US’s southern border, and “breached the public trust” by his actions.
Congressman Tom McClintock, a California Republican, outlined his opposition in a lengthy memo in which he argues that the articles of impeachment “fail to identify an impeachable crime that Mayorkas has committed”.
“In effect, they stretch and distort the Constitution in order to hold the administration accountable for stretching and distorting the law,” he wrote.
Congressman Ken Buck, the retiring Colorado Republican who declared himself solidly opposed to the impeachment effort, said the accusations leveled against Mayorkas amounted to a “policy difference”, not an impeachable offense.
“If we start going down this path of impeachment with a cabinet official, we are opening a door as Republicans that we don’t want to open,” Buck said on MSNBC shortly before the afternoon vote.
Republicans rushed ahead with an impeachment vote, overriding the objections of Democrats and legal experts, including some prominent conservatives, who say they have failed to produce compelling evidence that the cabinet secretary had committed high crimes and misdemeanors, the constitution’s bar for impeachment.
“I respect everybody’s view on it,” House speaker Mike Johnson told reporters on Tuesday. “I understand the heavy weight that impeachment is.”
He described impeachment as an “extreme measure”, but said that “extreme times call for extreme measures.”
During the floor debate on Tuesday, Republicans leveled broad accusations that Mayorkas had mismanaged oversight of the US-Mexico border, where arrests for illegal crossings have reached record highs.
“The constituents I represent do not understand why Texas has had to endure basically an invasion during the tenure of the secretary of Homeland Security,” Congressman Michael Burgess, Republican of Texas, said in floor remarks ahead of the procedural vote. “What are we left to do?”
Mayorkas, a former federal prosecutor, never testified but mounted a forceful defense in a letter to Congressman Mark Green, a Tennessee Republican and chair of the committee on homeland security, where the impeachment articles originated. In it, the secretary declared: “Your false accusations do not rattle me and do not divert me from the law enforcement and broader public service mission to which I have devoted most of my career.”
A Harvard-Harris survey conducted this month showed that immigration is now an important concern for voters, with 35% of respondents citing the issue as their top priority. But Democrats say that the Republican impeachment effort is a political stunt rather than meaningful reform.
“Do we have a problem at the border? Absolutely,” said Democratic congressman Jim McGovern of Massachusetts. But, he said: “It’s clear that this is not about Secretary Mayorkas or a high crime and misdemeanor. It is about a policy disagreement with President Biden.”
Trump has made the “crisis” at the border a focus of his presidential campaign and celebrated Republicans for impeaching Mayorkas on very shaky grounds.
Across the Capitol, a border security deal recently brokered by the Biden administration and a bipartisan group of senators teetered on the brink of collapse, with nearly all of the Republican conference aligned against it. After months of painstaking negotiations, the Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell told reporters on Tuesday that he saw “no real chance here to make a law” despite his support for the proposal.
Even if the bill had a chance in the Senate, its fate was sealed in the House, where Johnson had already announced the proposal “dead on arrival”.
Earlier on Tuesday, Biden implored congressional Republicans to “show a little spine” and advance the legislation, which pairs a border clamp down with billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine and Israel. In pointed remarks, Biden accused Trump, his predecessor and likely Republican rival in November, of tanking the deal and risking US national security for political gain.
“All indications are this bill won’t even move forward to the Senate floor,” Biden said in a speech televised from the White House. “Why? A simple reason. Donald Trump. Because Donald Trump thinks this is bad for him politically.”
Constitutional scholars and legal experts have argued that Republicans’ case against Mayorkas amounts to a policy dispute over a Democratic president’s handling of US border policy.
Jonathan Turley, a conservative commentator and legal scholar, said Republicans had uncovered “no current evidence that he is corrupt or committed an impeachable offense”, while Alan Dershowitz, Trump’s defense attorney during his first impeachment trial, wrote that Republicans were attempting to impeach Mayorkas on “vague and unconstitutional grounds”.
“Whatever else Mayorkas may or may not have done, he has not committed bribery, treason, or high crimes and misdemeanors,” Dershowitz wrote in an op-ed for the Hill newspaper. The conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board took a similar view, questioning whether Republicans intended to use their majority to “accomplish anything other than impeaching Democrats”.
Three former secretaries of the Department of Homeland Security, including Michael Chertoff, who served under George W Bush and Janet Napolitano and Jeh Johnson, who served under Barack Obama, said in a letter released before Tuesday’s vote that impeaching a cabinet official over “political disagreements” would “jeopardize our national security”.
“Impeaching Secretary Mayorkas solves nothing and leaves our outdated immigration system exactly where it is now – broken,” they wrote.
Amanda Smith is a dedicated U.S. correspondent with a passion for uncovering the stories that shape the nation. With a background in political science, she provides in-depth analysis and insightful commentary on domestic affairs, ensuring readers are well-informed about the latest developments across the United States.
