The House Committee on Homeland Security voted early Wednesday morning to advance the articles of impeachment against Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for refusing to enforce immigration laws and protect the nation’s borders.
After roughly 15 hours of lengthy debate and parliamentary tactics used by the committee minority to derail the proceedings, the articles of impeachment reportedly passed the panel on a party-line 18-15 vote around 1:00 a.m. Wednesday.
Homeland Security Chairman Mark Green (R-Tenn.) announced in a released statement:
The facts are indisputable — for three years, Secretary Mayorkas has willfully and systemically refused to comply with the laws enacted by Congress, and he has breached the public trust. His actions created this unprecedented crisis, turning every state into a border state.
As a result, thousands of Americans have lost their lives and our nation is experiencing a historic national security, public safety, and humanitarian catastrophe. Make no mistake, Secretary Mayorkas’ lawlessness is exactly what the Framers of our Constitution designed impeachment to remedy. The historical record makes it clear — Congress holds impeachment power to hold accountable public officials who refuse to do their duty, and to deal with grave harms to our political order.
According to the Washington Times, “Speaker Mike Johnson has signaled he wants a quick floor vote to follow, and Republicans said the eventual outcome is certain.”
The lengthy committee meeting started several hours after Secretary Mayorkas sent a six page letter at 4:48 on Tuesday morning to Chairman Green as a last-minute defense.
Mayorkas wrote about his accomplishments, and as noted by Green in a statement, he used roughly one-third of the six pages “sharing personal, biographical information, referencing awards received more than 30 years ago. These obviously fail to offer a defense of his willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law or his breach of the public’s trust as secretary. His letter comes after repeated attempts by the Committee to secure the secretary’s in-person testimony since last August.”
However, Mayorkas reportedly stood his ground in his defense over the ongoing proceedings stating in the letter, “I assure you that 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 and to which I remain devoted.”
The Times reported, “Democrats warned that if Mr. Mayorkas is impeached, it ‘opens the floodgates’ for impeachment proceedings against others.”
“Democrats argue that Mayorkas is acting under his legal authorities at the department and that the criticisms against him do not rise to the level of impeachment,” stated a PBS News Hour article.
PBS continued, “House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York called the proceedings a ‘political stunt’ ordered up by Trump and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., a Trump ally, who pushed the resolution forward.”
However, pointing to Democrats fed up with the border crisis, the committee shared on Tuesday a fact sheet of numerous examples of Democrats at various levels of government blasting the ongoing border crisis. Here are a few key examples:
- “There is a crisis. We have a crisis at our border, and it can’t be controversial that we should have a secure border.” — Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, January 2024
- “We need to raise the credible fear standard at the border, and we need to have expedited hearings, and we need to have expedited removals, and we need to enforce American immigration laws in a humane way… But we do need to enforce American immigration laws at the border…Simply said, we need to enforce our laws. We need to scrutinize asylum-seekers further.” — Texas Rep. Vincente Gonzalez, Dec. 28, 2023
- “It’s the entire country that is now at stake.” — Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, Dec. 27, 2023
According to a press release, the House Committee on Homeland Security approved the articles of impeachment following a “nearly year-long investigation into the causes, costs, and consequences of the unprecedented crisis at America’s borders. Throughout the process, Secretary Mayorkas refused to cooperate with requests to appear before the Committee to provide testimony in defense of his refusal to comply with U.S. immigration laws and his breach of the public trust.”
During past year the committee published five detailed reports of its findings, totaling nearly 400 pages, and conducted 10 full and subcommittee hearings, gathering testimony from more than two dozen witnesses, which culminated in the impeachment proceedings.
According to the committee statement, their findings “conclusively establish that Secretary Mayorkas is chiefly responsible for the chaos and devastation that has unfolded at America’s borders over the past three years. His willful and systemic refusal to comply with the laws passed by Congress has incentivized unprecedented mass illegal immigration.”
With a floor vote on the articles of impeachment certain to happen this week in the House, any action taken by the Senate may be met with resistance, as their recent efforts to pass a bipartisan border security package has revealed.
