House Republicans have formally submitted two articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to the Senate, citing his alleged failure to enforce immigration laws and deceiving Congress about the security of the United States border.
House Homeland Security Committee chairman Mark Green and ten other managers submitted the document on Tuesday afternoon, setting the stage for a potential Senate trial.
“The evidence is clear—Secretary Mayorkas should be tried by the Senate for high crimes and misdemeanors. Specifically, the House found that he willfully and systemically refused to comply with the laws passed by Congress and breached the public trust,” stated Chairman Green.
He emphasized the significance of the charges and called for a serious and deliberate Senate response: “These are serious charges that I urge my colleagues in the Senate to treat with the gravity and deliberation they deserve. The Senate has a responsibility to conduct a full trial, hear the evidence, and render a verdict.”
Senate Republicans, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, anticipate the Democratic majority may bypass a full trial and vote on the conviction.
McConnell expressed his intent to focus on the charges. “The facts of the crisis are well-known,” he noted in a Senate speech. “Since January of 2021, [Customs and Border Protection] has recorded more than 7.5 million illegal crossings at our southern border, while observers estimate over 1.5 million known gotaways.”
“The House managers will make the case for Secretary Mayorkas’ role in neglecting and exacerbating that crisis,” McConnell added, highlighting the critical nature of a thorough examination.
Contrastingly, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer criticized the use of impeachment for policy disputes and hinted at a swift procedural handling.
“We want to address this issue as expeditiously as possible,” Schumer declared. “Impeachment should never be used to settle a policy disagreement.”
Schumer continued, “This would set an awful precedent for Congress. Every time there’s a policy disagreement in the House, they send it over here to tie the Senate in knots to do an impeachment trial? That’s an abuse of the process.”
Mayorkas is only the second Cabinet official in U.S. history to be impeached, the first being Secretary of War William Belknap in 1876.
