Members of the Republican or Grand Old Party (GOP) released two impeachment charges against Alejandro Mayorkas, Homeland Security Secretary, last Sunday. The charges, which they detailed in two articles of impeachment, accused Mayorkas of disregarding immigration laws and breaching public trust. They claim that President Biden’s foremost immigration officer “terminated contracts” to erect Donald Trump’s wall on the border the country shares with Mexico.
“These articles lay out a clear, compelling, and irrefutable case for Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ impeachment,” Mark Green, the Republican House Homeland Security Chairman, said. Last Sunday, he mentioned that “Congress has a duty to see that the executive branch implements and enforces the laws we have passed. Yet Secretary Mayorkas has repeatedly refused to do so.”
According to the first article of impeachment, Mayorkas refused to enforce the relevant immigration and congressional laws. This, it says, worsened the Mexico-United States border crisis. In the second article, they accused the secretary of making false statements to Congress. It also noted that Mayorkas prevented the House from overseeing his department.
In response to the charges, DHS says they were politically motivated and contained no evidence. “They 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,” the department said.
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It added that the “farce of an impeachment is a distraction from other vital national security priorities and the work Congress should be doing to actually fix our broken immigration laws.”
Rep. Robert Garcia, a Democrat, agrees with the DHS. In a statement he posted on X, he wrote, “Days after Donald Trump publicly ordered his congressional pawns to oppose any border reform, they want to impeach Secretary Mayorkas for not securing our border. We need real immigration reform, not political stunts like this.” Nevertheless, the House Homeland Security Committee met last month to consider the charges against the secretary.
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Meanwhile, many legal scholars believe that the GOP’s strategy is equivalent to using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. They say it’s not typical to attempt to impeach someone for character or policy disputes.
According to Tulane law professor Ross Garber, “What the House Republicans are asserting is that Secretary Mayorkas is guilty of maladministration. At least as framed right now, the charges don’t rise to the level of a high crime or misdemeanor.” It’s important to note that Garber has prosecuted and defended multiple impeachment cases as a representative of many Republican officeholders.
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Former DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff also gave his opinion on the matter. “As a former federal judge, U.S. attorney, and assistant attorney general — I can say with confidence that, for all the investigating that the House Committee on Homeland Security has done, they have failed to put forth evidence that meets the bar,” he said.
Despite these dissenting opinions, the House Republicans have remained resolute. They took a step further in their impeachment goal by voting to advance the articles against Mayorkas on Wednesday, January 24. If they’re successful, Mayorkas will be the first impeached cabinet secretary in almost 150 years.
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