GOP opens impeachment proceedings against Mayorka without evidence of high crimes

Republicans in the House of Representatives on Wednesday began formal impeachment hearings against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas, accusing him of deliberately failing to enforce immigration laws, even as leading constitutional experts said there was no basis to to do that.

The Republican Party’s attempt to oust Mr. Mayorkas is the latest escalation in the party’s efforts to attack the Biden administration on immigration, a politically potent issue that has long animated and fueled the far-right Republican base. has become a problem for President Biden in recent months. Migration across the US-Mexico border has increased dramatically.

But Republicans have struggled to argue that their policy complaints are enough to support charges of high crimes and misdemeanors.

On Wednesday, Republican lawmakers accused Mr. Mayorkas of fueling, or at least exacerbating, a wave of migration and drug trafficking across the southern border by failing to implement the full force of laws that could ease the situation.

“After watching this happen for almost three years, what other conclusion can I come to other than that this is a deliberate crisis?” Representative Mark E. Green, Republican of Tennessee and chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, said Wednesday. He argued that Mr Mayorkas had implemented an “open borders policy” knowing it would be exploited by dangerous cartels.

Democrats insisted that Republicans were unfairly attacking Mr. Mayorkas for simply implementing Mr. Biden’s policies in an effort to appease Republican Party hardliners who are pushing for a crackdown on the borders and have threatened a shutdown of the government to get their way.

“You can’t impeach a Cabinet secretary because you don’t like a president’s policies,” said Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the top Democrat on the committee. “That’s not what impeachment is for. That is not what the Constitution says.”

Democrats invited a constitutional expert to make that argument.

Impeachment “should not be a routine tool to resolve ordinary public policy debates,” Frank O. Bowman III, a law professor at the University of Missouri and a nationally recognized impeachment expert, told the Homeland Security Committee. “Based on all the information available to me, I have found no indication that he has committed any serious crimes or misdemeanors.”

His sentiment echoed that of a leading constitutional expert regularly cited by Republicans who was the party’s leading legal witness against the impeachment of former President Donald J. Trump.

“Being bad at your job is not a criminal offense. Even very bad. Even Mayorkas’ level is bad,” wrote Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University an opinion piece published Tuesday, which was widely cited by Democrats during Wednesday’s hearing.

“If that were the case,” Mr. Turley added, “he would be just the latest in a long line of Cabinet officials marching into Congress for constitutional termination.”

House Republicans’ case against Mayorkas has not changed since they signaled their intention to impeach him a year ago. It hinges on the Biden administration’s decision not to end the policy that allows migrants who enter the country illegally to remain on parole in the United States while their cases for permanent admission are pending in immigration courts is.

To make their case, they convened a trio of attorneys general — all of whom are suing Mr. Mayorkas over the Biden administration’s border policies — to bolster their claim that unlawful border crossings and fentanyl deaths had gotten so bad that the only logical conclusion was that Mr. Mayorkas was deliberately trying to endanger the country.

“This body is fully within its constitutional and statutory right to initiate impeachment proceedings,” Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen testified.

Republicans also accuse Mr. Mayorkas of lying to Congress about whether the administration had “operational control” of the border, despite Mr. Mayorkas’ testimony that border patrol agents and Congress recognize different definitions of the term.

“It was clearly not the intention of the Founders to limit the power of congressional impeachment over the executive branch, to limit it to violations of written statutes,” said Representative Clay Higgins, Republican of Louisiana.

Democrats noted that Republicans had failed to present any specific evidence against Mr. Mayorkas and accused them of describing their political attacks on Mr. Biden’s immigration policies as an impeachment effort.

“It’s the same hearing we’ve had 10, 12 times,” said Rep. Dan Goldman, Democrat of New York, who led the prosecution during Trump’s first impeachment. “Same pig, different lipstick, because we’re now going to call it an impeachment hearing.”