By Anna Giaritelli. Media: Washingtonexaminer
The House Rules Committee approved both articles of impeachment Republican lawmakers filed against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, teeing up a historic House floor vote that could happen as soon as Tuesday.
The passage through the committee marked the final hurdle that the House GOP had to clear to reach a floor vote following a year of hearings that targeted Mayorkas’s handling of the border crisis.
“I take no pleasure in our actions today, but Secretary Mayorkas’s actions — both in his intentional refusal to enforce all laws and abandoning the confidence of Americans — require us to act,” said House Rules Chairman Tom Cole (R-OK). “Secretary Mayorkas has refused to uphold his oath of office. If he will not do so — his duty — then unfortunately the House must do its constitutional duty.”
The 12-member panel voted along party lines 8-4 on H.R. 863 after four hours of debate. The articles charge Mayorkas with willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law and a breach of the public trust.
“[Mayorkas] knows what the laws are, and he has created systems to subvert those laws,” House Homeland Security Chairman Mark Green (R-TN) testified before the rules panel Monday afternoon, referencing the Biden administration’s expanded parole programs for immigrants.
“If he was a Republican, I’d be doing the exact same thing,” Green said.
The Rules Committee approved a closed rule on the resolution, setting the House up for a vote to approve the rule. If successful, members will debate the articles on the House floor and then vote.
Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA), the committee’s top Democrat, called the panel’s action “one of the most pathetic, embarrassing things that this committee has ever done.”
“You should be ashamed of yourself for bringing this kind of trash before this committee,” said McGovern. “We are here because [Georgia GOP Rep.] Marjorie Taylor Greene and the chock-full of nuts caucus wanted us to be here.”
House Homeland Security Committee members approved the articles in a party-line vote of 18-15 in the early morning hours of Jan. 31 following a 14-hour markup.
There remain several undecided Republican votes, which will be necessary given Republicans’ threadbare majority, but impeachment has the support of the House GOP leadership team.
Republicans have blamed Mayorkas for a crisis at the southern border, where for the past three years, Border Patrol agents have arrested more illegal immigrants than any previous time in national history. GOP lawmakers have accused Biden of inciting the influx by pledging as a candidate to undo Trump-era border initiatives, while Democrats have attributed the phenomenon to rising global migration, particularly across the Western Hemisphere.
The impeachment effort has drawn sharp condemnation from House Democrats, who call the use of impeachment politically motivated.
The White House issued a statement ahead of the Rules hearing and urged Congress not to move forward with the articles of impeachment against Mayorkas.
“Impeaching Secretary Mayorkas would be an unprecedented and unconstitutional act of political retribution that would do nothing to solve the challenges our nation faces in securing the border,” the White House said in a statement. “Impeaching Secretary Mayorkas would trivialize this solemn constitutional power and invite more partisan abuse of this authority in the future.”
