WASHINGTON (States Newsroom) — Eleven U.S. House Republicans serving as impeachment managers delivered two articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to the U.S. Senate on Tuesday.
The ceremonial delivery of the articles of impeachment, which charge Mayorkas with a “willful and systemic refusal to comply” with federal immigration law and breaking the public trust, is an escalation in a years-long clash between congressional Republicans and the Biden administration over its handling of immigration. The issue has taken center stage in the leadup to November’s elections.
Senate Democrats have indicated that they plan to move quickly to dismiss the impeachment process.
“We want to address this issue as expeditiously as possible,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on the Senate floor Tuesday. “Impeachment should never be used to settle a policy disagreement.”
Schumer, a New York Democrat, can make a motion to dismiss or table the articles, which would succeed with a simple majority. Democrats and independents who vote with them for the purposes of organizing the chamber hold a 51-49 majority.
The partisan makeup of the Senate and the two-thirds majority needed for conviction mean it’s unlikely that Mayorkas would be convicted and removed from his role.
Push for trial
However, Republicans are still pushing for a trial.
“We expect and we demand that all 100 senators listen to the arguments of the House impeachment managers,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said during a Tuesday press conference. “If Sen. Schumer cares at all about the suffering of Americans and the disaster that Mayorkas has wrought at the border, then he will hold a full and public trial.”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky made similar remarks.
“It would be beneath the Senate’s dignity to shrug off our clear responsibility and fail to give the charges we’ll hear today the thorough consideration they deserve,” McConnell said on the Senate floor Tuesday.
Washington state Democratic Sen. Patty Murray, who is presiding over the proceedings, announced that the Senate will inform the House when senators are ready to proceed with a trial.
The Senate Sergeant of Arms introduced the impeachment managers: Mark Green of Tennessee, Michael McCaul of Texas, Andy Biggs of Arizona, Ben Cline of Virginia, Andrew Garbarino of New York, Michael Guest of Mississippi, Harriet Hageman of Wyoming, Clay Higgins of Louisiana, Laurel Lee of Florida, August Pfluger of Texas and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Rome, Georgia.
Green of Tennessee, lead impeachment manager and chair of the Homeland Security Committee that handled impeachment proceedings for Mayorkas, read the two articles of impeachment to senators after delivering them Tuesday afternoon.
The impeachment managers then went back to the House.
“The Senate has a responsibility to conduct a full trial, hear the evidence, and render a verdict,” Green said in a statement after delivering the articles of impeachment. “Refusing to do so would mark the first time the Senate has refused to hold an impeachment trial when it had the opportunity to do so.”
Schumer said that senators would be sworn in as jurors Wednesday at 1 p.m. Eastern.
If a trial proceeds, it will be the first time that a sitting Cabinet member has gone through an impeachment trial. The last Cabinet official who was impeached, William Belknap in 1876, resigned before the House and Senate could vote to impeach him and remove him from his post as secretary of War.
Impeachment articles
Mere hours before House impeachment managers ceremoniously walked over the two articles of impeachment to the Senate, Mayorkas appeared before the same committee that moved forward with his impeachment—Homeland Security. At the morning hearing, Mayorkas answered questions about the budget request for his department for fiscal 2025.
During the hearing, questions about the impeachment arose.
Republicans grilled Mayorkas on migration at the southern border, while Democrats said that the move to impeach Mayorkas fell short of the “high crimes and misdemeanors” threshold needed for impeachment and was more about policy differences between Republicans and the White House.
The same committee advanced the articles of impeachment in January. It took House Republicans two attempts to vote to approve the articles of impeachment on the House floor.
The first article of impeachment cites sections of the Immigration and Nationality Act that Republicans say Mayorkas did not follow. The article accuses Mayorkas of failing to follow detention and removal requirements under the law, ignoring the requirement for expedited removals and abusing the administration’s humanitarian parole authority.
The White House has had parole authority since the 1950s, and the Biden administration has created temporary protections for certain nationals from Afghanistan, Ukraine, Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, Venezuela and other countries to allow them to temporarily work and reside in the country.
The second article of impeachment argues that Mayorkas breached public trust by making several statements in congressional testimony that Republicans argue are false. Specifically Mayorkas told lawmakers that the southern border is “secure.”
Conservative unrest
Johnson said that impeaching Mayorkas is a focus for House Republicans.
Johnson is also facing a challenge to remove him from his role as speaker, with one of the impeachment managers, Greene, leading the effort.
The Georgia Republican released a scathing five-page letter on April 9 that threatened to oust Johnson from his role and made the case to her Republican colleagues to support his removal. Greene also filed a motion to vacate in late March, but has not forced a vote on it.
Kentucky Republican Thomas Massie joined Greene’s cause Tuesday, giving his support to removing Johnson as speaker.
Johnson tried to quell the dissent in the hard-right faction of his party with a show of unity with presumed Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump in Palm Beach, Florida, last week. During that visit, Johnson promoted an unreleased bill related to noncitizens voting in federal elections.
Greene, who first introduced articles of impeachment in September, months before the House Homeland Security Committee began impeachment proceedings, has for a long time pursued the impeachment of Mayorkas.
Johnson originally planned for the impeachment managers to deliver the articles of impeachment last week, but delayed at the request of Senate Republicans.
Those Senate Republicans requested a delay in order to avoid the start of an impeachment trial on the same day that senators were scheduled to dash out of Washington and head home.
“You don’t want members trying to get out of town so quickly that they are influenced by the jet fumes,” Utah’s Sen. Mike Lee said last week.
