The Republican-led
House Homeland Security Committee will mark up an impeachment resolution against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas
Tuesday morning, potentially setting up the first House vote to impeach a Cabinet member since the 1870s.
Details: The Republican-drafted resolution accuses Mayorkas of “willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law” regarding immigration and charges him with “breach of public trust.” It alleges millions of people have entered the country illegally due largely to Mayorkas’s “unlawful conduct.”
Process note: If the House voted to impeach Mayorkas before the end of the year, his trial would take place in the Democratic-majority Senate.
Takes: The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a memo that Republicans
“don’t want to fix the problem; they want to campaign on it. That’s why they have undermined efforts to achieve bipartisan solutions and ignored the facts, legal scholars and experts, and even the Constitution itself in their quest to baselessly impeach Secretary Mayorkas.”
Former Republican-appointed Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and conservative law professor Jonathan Turley have argued Republicans haven’t met the standard for impeachment.
The view from Homeland Security Committee Chair Mark Green (R-Tenn.): “These articles lay out a clear, compelling, and irrefutable case for Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ impeachment,” Green said in a statement.
Border deal: The impeachment mark-up comes as the Senate works toward finalizing a border deal negotiated by senators from both parties and the White House. The deal faces poor odds in the House, where conservatives have urged no compromise. Former
President Trump has also pushed lawmakers to oppose such a deal.
Related: Trump: Border deal being used to put ‘disaster’ onto Republicans’ shoulders