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Though Mayorkas has long been a focus of Republican criticism of the White House's border policies -- testifying multiple times before Congress -- the Department of Homeland Security maintains that no high crimes or misdemeanor have ever been committed under the Biden administration. House Republicans voted to impeach Mayorkas in February over his handling of the southern border by a narrow margin after failing to do so on their first try. The senators voted against considering the first article of impeachment, with one Republican, Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, voting present. The Senate killed the articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Wednesday as the historic trial of the Cabinet secretary barely got underway. This is a reference to Trump-era policy more commonly known as Remain in Mexico, which required many migrants to wait on the Mexican side of the border for their immigration court dates.
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US House Republicans plan impeachment hearing for Biden's border chief - Reuters
US House Republicans plan impeachment hearing for Biden's border chief.
Posted: Wed, 03 Jan 2024 08:00:00 GMT [source]
In a pair of party-line votes, Democrats held that two articles alleging Mayorkas willfully refused to enforce the nation’s immigration laws and breached the public trust with his statements to Congress about the high levels of migration at the US southern border with Mexico were unconstitutional. On the first article, Lisa Murkowski, the Republican senator from Alaska, voted “present”. House Republicans on Tuesday formally presented articles of impeachment against Alejandro Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary, to the Senate, part of the party’s attempt to force an election-year showdown with the Biden administration over immigration and border security. The upper chamber is compelled by Senate rules to convene as a court of impeachment after the articles have been transmitted.
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"The managers on the part of the House of Representatives are present and ready to present the articles of impeachment," Rep. Mark Green of Tennessee, one of the House impeachment managers, said as he began reading the impeachment articles on the Senate floor. It’s expected that Senate Democrats, who control the chamber, will band together and vote to dismiss or table the issue, then move on to other business, including the chamber's need to renew a critical spy tool before it expires Friday. None of the Senate's 51 Democrats have said they support the Mayorkas impeachment, and even a handful of GOP senators have said the impeachment is meritless.
GOP senators demand full trial for Mayorkas
Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat who is facing a tough reelection bid in Ohio, called the impeachment trial a “distraction,” arguing that Republicans should instead support a bipartisan border compromise they scuttled earlier this year. The House Homeland Security Committee chairman, Mark Green, a Tennessee Republican who is one of the impeachment managers, read the articles aloud as most senators sat in their seats, following along with their own paper copies. Here's what lawmakers on Capitol Hill are saying after the Democratic-controlled Senate voted to kill both articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Republicans have repeatedly accused Mayorkas of failing to enforce the nation's laws as a record number of migrants arrived at the U.S.-Mexico border. Democrats and the Department of Homeland Security have criticized the impeachment effort as a "baseless" political attack, citing experts who have testified that Mayorkas' conduct did not rise to the level of "high crimes and misdemeanors," the legal basis for impeachment under the Constitution. Democrats, as well as Mayorkas, have argued that it’s not the administration’s policies that are causing people to attempt to migrate to America but that the movement is part of a global mass migration of people fleeing wars, economic instability and political repression.
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The blink-and-you-missed-it trial marked the culmination of a mostly failed political gambit hatched by House Republicans seeking to cast the limelight on the Biden administration’s handling of the southern border ahead of the general election. Democrats and immigration experts have pointed to this provision as evidence of the overreach of the impeachment articles against Mr. Mayorkas. Asylum cooperative agreements are not under the purview of the Department of Homeland Security, but the State Department — meaning it was Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and not Mr. Mayorkas who terminated them. "Catch and release" has become Republicans’ preferred term to describe the practice of allowing migrants into the United States pending their court appearances.
The Senate's role in impeachments
Some Senate Republicans, such as Senate GOP Whip John Thune of South Dakota, were noncommittal about backing such a move. Part of Green’s pitch to become chairman has centered on how he will hold the Biden administration accountable over the southern border. "You're aware on Thursday afternoon senators rush to the airport and fly to get out of here," GOP Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas told reporters. "Schumer wants it on a Thursday afternoon because he wants no coverage. He wants it to go away quickly. The advantage of starting the week with it is it enables the Senate to focus on it."
Presidents Trump, Barack Obama and George W. Bush also put in place group-based parole programs to assist certain categories of migrants. The Constitution gives Congress the power to impeach and remove officials who are found to have committed "treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors." Democrats and many legal experts argue that Mr. Mayorkas's actions do not meet this standard. The department on Sunday cited high numbers of people being removed from the country, especially over roughly the last six months and its efforts to tackle fentanyl smuggling as proof that DHS is not shirking its border duties. And, they said, no administration has been able to detain every person who crosses the border illegally, citing space capacities.
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Mayorkas, the article said, told Congress "that the border is 'secure', that the border is 'no less secure than it was previously', that the border is 'closed', and that DHS has 'operational control' of the border," among other comments. The resolution accused Mayorkas and the Biden administration of disregarding federal laws that mandate the detention of certain migrants, and overstepping their authority in using an authority known as parole to resettle more than 1 million migrants and refugees in the U.S. "His refusal to obey the law is not only an offense against the separation of powers in the Constitution of the United States, it also threatens our national security and has had a dire impact on communities across the country," the impeachment resolution said. They also attacked the administration’s use of the humanitarian parole authority, which allows the DHS secretary to admit certain migrants into the country. Republicans said the Biden administration has essentially created a mass parole program that bypasses Congress.
House Republicans postpone sending Mayorkas impeachment articles to Senate
But hours after the White House meeting, Trump signaled his skepticism toward any border deal, “unless we get everything” to shut down the migrants crossings, he wrote on social media. The White House, meanwhile, applauded Senate Democrats for dispensing with what it called a “baseless” case. “What Senator Schumer is going to do is fatuous, it is fraudulent and it is an insult to the Senate and a disservice to every American citizen,” said John Kennedy, the Republican senator from Louisiana, at a press conference on Tuesday.
No prior administration has ever detained every unauthorized border crosser, DHS has noted, and even hard-line restrictions like those implemented under former President Donald Trump were bound by resource limits that resulted in many getting temporarily released into the U.S. Impeachment rules generally allow the Senate majority to decide how to manage the trial, and Schumer has not said exactly what he will do. Biden said in a statement Wednesday that he "strongly supports" the package of bills, his first explicit endorsement of Johnson's plan.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Laying the groundwork for the impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, a House committee on Thursday heard from parents whose tearful testimony sought to link government border policy to their daughters’ deaths and from a law professor warning off the effort. Had they moved to a trial, Republicans still would have lacked the support of two-thirds of the Senate, which would have been needed to convict and remove Mayorkas from office. Constitutional scholars, including conservative legal experts, have said the Republicans’ impeachment case is deeply flawed and weakens Congress’s most powerful tool for holding despots and delinquents to account.
It’s no surprise considering Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) has been clamoring since last year for Mayorkas to resign or face impeachment proceedings. Articles of impeachment were filed in early January, but the GOP effort gained steam last week with a House Homeland Security committee hearing about the effect of U.S.-Mexico border policies. AP correspondent Mary Clare Jalonick reports Democrats could quickly end the trial by calling for votes to toss out the articles of impeachment. An outright dismissal of House Republicans’ prosecution of Mayorkas, with no chance to argue the case, is an embarrassing defeat for House Republicans and embattled House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., who made the impeachment a priority. And it is likely to resonate politically for both Republicans and Democrats in a presidential election year when border security has been a top issue.
And with a quick dismissal almost inevitable, the Senate never even set up the chamber for the occasion, which usually includes tables on each side for the impeachment managers and defense lawyers. Senate Republicans had argued for a full impeachment trial after the House narrowly voted in February to impeach Mayorkas for his handling of the border, stating in the two articles that he “willfully and systematically” refused to enforce immigration laws. Senators voted to dismiss both articles of impeachment and end the proceedings, with Democrats arguing that the articles were unconstitutional. The first article charged Mayorkas with “willful and systemic refusal to comply” with immigration law and second article charged him with a “breach of trust” for saying the border was secure. At the same time, Republicans similarly moved to dismiss former President Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial in 2021, weeks after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
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