Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas became the second presidential cabinet official to be impeached after a historic vote in the House on Tuesday.
Lawmakers in the lower chamber voted 214-213 to impeach the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) over the administration’s refusal to secure the nation’s borders.
“For nearly a year, the House Homeland Security Committee has taken a careful and methodical approach to this investigation and the results are clear,” Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson said in a statement. “From his first day in office, Secretary Mayorkas has willfully and consistently refused to comply with federal immigration laws, fueling the worst border catastrophe in American history.”
Mayorkas was impeached for “Willful and Systemic Refusal to Comply With the Law” and “Breach of the Public Trust.”
Mayorkas, Johnson said, “has undermined public trust through multiple false statements to Congress, obstructed lawful oversight of the Department of Homeland Security, and violated his oath of office.”
Lawmakers accused Mayorkas of deliberately undermining the administration’s constitutional obligation to secure the border through years of initiatives aimed at circumventing U.S. immigration laws. The DHS chief has welcomed wave after wave of unchecked illegal immigration, dramatically expanding parole and the CBP One App, which allows migrant entry so long as an appointment with officials is on the calendar. From the time President Biden took office through the beginning of October 2023, an estimated 1.7 million known “gotaways” had come into the United States unvetted, according to the House Judiciary Committee. More than 10 million total illegal immigrants have reportedly flooded the country under the Biden administration.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) released the latest data on migrant encounters over the weekend, revealing more than 176,000 border encounters for January, which marks the slowest month of the fiscal year. According to the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), however, the latest numbers “are nothing to crow about.”
“Between April 2006 (when agents nabbed just short of 161,000 illegal migrants) and February 2021, apprehensions exceeded 128,000 in just one month: May 2019, when agents stopped fewer than 133,000 aliens who had crossed the border illegally,” wrote CIS Resident Fellow Andrew Arthur. “In other words, there were only 3.4 percent fewer apprehensions last month than in the worst month for apprehensions at the Southwest border in the 13-year period between May 2006 and May 2019.”
Tuesday’s vote was the second time House Republicans sought to pass impeachment articles against the DHS secretary. The first full-chamber vote failed last week when a trio of House Republicans, including Colorado’s Ken Buck, Wisconsin’s Mike Gallagher, and California’s Tom McClintock, joined Democrats to block the resolution. The same three GOP lawmakers voted again with Democrats Tuesday night, but this time Republicans were boosted by the return of Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise, who was back to Capitol Hill following cancer treatment.
