Despite a failed vote to impeach Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Tuesday for failing to secure America’s southern border, House Republicans have indicated that the impeachment effort will be brought back to the House floor as early as next week.
A mostly party-line vote on Tuesday night fell short of a majority, with 214 Republicans voting in favor of the measure and 212 Democrats along with three GOP members voting against it. Rep. Blake Moore (R-Utah) switched his vote to “no” as time expired in order to allow House Republicans to bring up the impeachment vote again. A series of circumstances worked against the passage of the measure, including the scheduled absence of House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) due to receiving medical treatment.
Following the vote, Raj Shah, House Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) deputy chief of communications, posted on X, “House Republicans fully intend to bring Articles of Impeachment against Secretary Mayorkas back to the floor when we have the votes for passage.” Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) added on X that the impeachment vote “will be brought back to the floor next week.”
The articles of impeachment against Mayorkas state that the secretary is guilty of “willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law” and “breach of the public trust.” As noted by Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.) during a hearing last summer, “The evidence shows that Mayorkas has repeatedly violated the law that prohibits mass parole of aliens into the country. The statute makes clear, parole is only to be granted on a case-by-case and temporary basis for an urgent humanitarian reason or significant public benefit. Instead, Mayorkas has done the opposite, directing and overseeing a release of hundreds of thousands of aliens via mass parole in just two years through various programs, including more recently, his CBP One app.”
The CBP One app has reportedly been exploited by Mexican cartels in their human smuggling operations.
Chad Wolf, former acting secretary of DHS, testified last summer that President Joe Biden and Mayorkas are responsible for “releasing illegal aliens on an honor system to self-report to [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] field offices, exempting 99% of illegal aliens from deportation, the lowest level of ICE detention capacity, [and the] lowest deportations in modern history.”
Additionally, during a hearing last summer, Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) described in detail how Mayorkas repeatedly lied to the House Homeland Security Committee, claiming that DHS had “operational control” of the southern border, even after Roy presented the definition of “operational control” to the secretary as defined by the Secure Fence Act of 2006, which states that it is the “prevention of all unlawful entries into the United States, including entries by terrorists, other unlawful aliens, instruments of terrorism, narcotics, and other contraband.”
It is estimated that under President Joe Biden and Mayorkas’s leadership, the number of illegal immigrants that have crossed the border has exceeded 10 million, including at least 1.7 million gotaways. The administration’s border policies have led to the total number of illegal immigrants present in the U.S. doubling from roughly 10 million to 20 million in the span of just three years.
During Wednesday’s edition of “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins,” Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.) highlighted the importance of House Republicans sticking together in order to follow through on impeaching Mayorkas for “dereliction” of duty.
“[W]e’ve got a very slim majority,” he emphasized, “In fact, I think it’s the second slimmest majority in the history of Congress. And really, we can’t afford to lose any votes, period. … We did lose three of our members and came up one short. … [W]e’ll have the opportunity to bring [it] up again as well, probably … next week.”
Dan Hart is senior editor at The Washington Stand.
