House panel pushes to impeach Mayorkas as border security beleaguers election year

A US House of Representatives panel early on Wednesday advanced impeachment charges against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over his handling of migration at the country's border, a near-unprecedented move that comes as political tensions around immigration ramp up.

US immigration reform has become the focus of a high-stakes political battle, with President Joe Biden and former president Donald Trump locking horns over one of the hottest issues of the 2024 election, Agence France-Presse reported.

The Republican-led House Homeland Security Committee debated all day on Tuesday and well into the night before recommending two articles of impeachment against Mayorkas to the full House, alleging his policies encouraged illegal immigration and that he violated public trust by making false statements to Congress, Reuters reported.

The committee Republicans voted in favor, while the Democrats unified against, 18-15.

The full House vote could be next week.

"He has willfully and systematically refused to comply with the laws passed by Congress and breached the trust of Congress and the American people," Representative Mark Green of Tennessee, the committee chairman, said at the start of the hearing. "The results have been catastrophic and have endangered the lives and livelihoods of all Americans."

Green said that "at every turn, our Democrat colleagues have met these oversight efforts with mockery".

Senators are working to unveil one of the harshest immigration bills in decades, containing significant restrictions that Biden has committed to signing into law — that could include Republican priorities such as temporary border shutdowns and an end to the "catch and release" of migrants.

The only time the House impeached a Cabinet member was in 1876, when president Ulysses S.Grant's secretary of war William Belknap was accused of corruption. The Senate acquitted him.

If the House were to impeach Mayorkas, a two-thirds vote would be required in the Senate for his removal, unlikely because Democrats control the Senate.

Biden, in comments to reporters at the White House on Tuesday before he left for a campaign event in Florida, said: "I've done all I can do. … Give me the Border Patrol, give me the judges, give me the people who can stop this and make it work right."

Clash over migration

While the politics of immigration are debated in Washington, Texas has clashed with the federal government over migration.

In December, a record 302,000 migrants entered the US through Mexico, including about 250,000 between ports of entry, according to Customs and Border Protection data.

The US Supreme Court ruled 5-4 on Jan 22 that federal Border Patrol agents could remove razor wire and other barriers put up by Texas. The state's governor Greg Abbott has said Texas is facing an "invasion".

In a letter to Biden and Mayorkas, 26 Republican state attorneys general backed Texas' efforts to secure its border: "We are a nation of laws. And without a border, we would quickly cease to be a nation at all."

Legal experts, including Jonathan Turley and Alan Dershowitz, have said the criticisms of Mayorkas do not rise to impeachable offenses, reported The Associated Press.

Biden is facing pressure for action from his own side, with frustrated northeastern Democrats forced to deal with busloads of migrants being sent to their cities by Abbott.

But he will also have to convince a handful of opponents in his own party, with some lawmakers strongly opposed to the immigration and border security changes.

"President Biden declaring he will sign a bill, knowing Republicans won't give him one, allows him to both take a strong position on immigration and point to Republicans as being inept ideologues," Peter Loge, a media and public affairs professor at George Washington University, told AFP.

Agencies contributed to this story.