KEY POINTS
- The Republican-led House Rules Committee passed a resolution in an 8-4 vote Monday night
- The Alejandro Mayorkas impeachment case will see a full chamber vote Tuesday
- House Republicans accuse Mayorkas of refusing to comply with immigration laws
The U.S. House has set the stage to vote on the impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Tuesday over border security.
The Republican-led House Rules Committee passed a resolution over Democratic objections in an 8-4 vote Monday night to send the impeachment case to the full chamber for a vote. The results could lead to Mayorkas being the first cabinet secretary to ever be impeached since 1876 and only the second in U.S. history.
Secretary of War William Belknap was the first and only cabinet secretary to be impeached. He resigned just before the 1876 vote.
House Republicans argue that Mayorkas, appointed by President Joe Biden in 2021, refused to comply with immigration laws, leading to a record surge of immigrants from the U.S.-Mexico border.
"Very clearly Secretary Mayorkas has picked and chosen which laws he's going to enforce," said Rep. Mark Green, R-Tenn., the chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security.
The rare impeachment case could escalate the political battle over illegal immigration and border security, which have become top election issues.
As election fever heats up, immigration remains at the forefront of Trump's campaign and is threatening to eclipse Biden's re-election pitch.
The Biden administration released a statement Monday and condemned the House's push to bring the Mayorkas impeachment to the floor.
"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.
The Biden administration argued that the impeachment effort fails to meet the Constitution's threshold for impeachable offenses, which are permitted "only for 'Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.'"
"The impeachment power was never intended as a device for members of an opposing political party to harass Executive Branch officials over policy disputes," the statement said.
"Impeaching Secretary Mayorkas would trivialize this solemn constitutional power and invite more partisan abuse of this authority in the future," it further said, adding, "It would do nothing to solve the challenges we face in securing our Nation's borders, nor would it provide the funding the President has repeatedly requested for more Border Patrol agents, immigration judges, and cutting-edge tools to detect and stop fentanyl at the border."
