House Panel Ready to Approve Impeachment Charges Against Mayorkas
The House Homeland Security Committee is expected to approve articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas on Tuesday, as Republicans rush forward with a partisan indictment of President Biden's immigration policies.
In what is expected to be a party-line vote, the panel is poised to accuse Mr. Mayorkas of refusing to enforce the law and betraying public trust in his handling of a wave of migrants across the United States border with Mexico, paving the way for the situation. away for a vote in the full House next week.
Republicans are pressing ahead despite fierce opposition from Democrats and a growing consensus among legal scholars that they have not presented evidence that the secretary committed high crimes and misdemeanors, the standard for impeachment.
It is almost certain that the indictment will collapse in the Democratic-controlled Senate, where a two-thirds majority would be needed to convict and impeach Mr. Mayorkas. But if they pass the House, they will force an election-year process that will give Republicans a chance to air their indictment of Mr. Biden's immigration policies.
In a letter to the panel on Tuesday, Mr. Mayorkas, whom Republicans did not allow to testify publicly in his own defense after a scheduling dispute, vigorously disputed the indictment, which accused him of ignoring laws that requiring deportation of migrants and obstructing congressional investigations. by withholding information and lying about the state of the border.
“You claim that we have failed to enforce our immigration laws. That is not true,” Mr. Mayorkas wrote. He said Republicans' claim that he obstructed their investigations was “baseless and inaccurate.”
The Republican Party's investigation into Mr. Mayorkas culminates as a bipartisan group of senators rush to finalize a border security deal that the secretary helped negotiate. But the deal faces bleak prospects as Republicans, egged on by former President Donald J. Trump, have labeled it too weak and Speaker Mike Johnson declared it “dead on arrival” in the House of Representatives.
Mr Biden has begged Congress to approve the plan and vowed to “close the border” if it becomes law.
Democrats have argued that Republicans are ousting Mr. Mayorkas as part of a strategy to keep the border in chaos so that Mr. Trump, who is again headed for the Republican Party's presidential nomination, can capitalize on public dissatisfaction with the Mr. Biden's handling of it and campaigning on a promise to fix the problem.
“Republicans are perpetuating challenges at the border to help re-elect Donald Trump,” Democrats on the Homeland Security panel wrote in a report, arguing that the GOP was trying to scapegoat Mr. Mayorkas for problems that only Congress could solve .
“They are playing the political blame game to distract from their failure to take meaningful action on border security and immigration legislation and to provide necessary funding for border security,” the report said.
Republicans argue that the Constitution provides ample leeway to charge an official for what they call his “bad conduct” toward the law.
“His refusal to obey the law not only violates the separation of powers in the United States Constitution, it also threatens our national security and has had a serious impact on communities across the country,” an impeachment statement said. article.
Democrats say Republicans are bowing to the far right by seeking to impose a harsh constitutional penalty on Mr. Mayorkas.
“This is a political stunt and a bull's eye,” Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the minority leader, told reporters on Monday. “House Republicans have clearly handed their shrinking majority to the extremists, and this sham accusation from Secretary Mayorkas is just one sad example.”