Alejandro Mayorkas impeached by House over border crisis after surviving vote last week

House Republicans have impeached Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in a contentious vote Tuesday evening, making the Biden administration official the first Cabinet member to be removed in nearly 150 years.

The vote was the second attempt by House Republicans to impeach Mayorkas after they failed to do so last week in an embarrassing blow to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA).

Lawmakers voted by a narrow margin 214-213 to approve two articles of impeachment against Mayorkas, who was confirmed by the Senate in February 2021 to lead the department’s 260,000 employees.

Three Republicans joined all Democrats in rejecting the articles of impeachment: Reps. Ken Buck (R-CO), Mike Gallagher (R-WI), and Tom McClintock (R-CA). They were the same three as last week’s failed vote, but the return of Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) from cancer treatment tipped the math against Mayorkas on Tuesday.

Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas speaks at a news conference on Wednesday, May 10, 2023, ahead of the lifting of Title 42. (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf)

Once the gavel came down with the final vote, Republicans in the chamber clapped and cheered. A Democratic member yelled, “Shame!”

Johnson applauded the successful revote.

“Alejandro Mayorkas deserves to be impeached, and Congress has a constitutional obligation to do so. Next to a declaration of war, impeachment is arguably the most serious authority given to the House, and we have treated this matter accordingly,” Johnson said in a statement.

However, a Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman shamed House Republicans, calling the impeachment “baseless,” particularly when Mayorkas had been working for weeks with bipartisan senators to develop legislation to fix the border.

“House Republicans will be remembered by history for trampling on the Constitution for political gain rather than working to solve the serious challenges at our border,” said DHS spokeswoman Mia Ehrenberg. “While Secretary Mayorkas was helping a group of Republican and Democratic senators develop bipartisan solutions to strengthen border security and get needed resources for enforcement, House Republicans have wasted months with this baseless, unconstitutional impeachment.”

The articles now head to the Senate, where Democrats seemed keen to delay or dismiss a trial against Biden’s Cabinet secretary.

Firebrand Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) brought the impeachment charges against Mayorkas, which were drawn up by the House Homeland Security Committee. Mayorkas was impeached on two counts: willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law and a breach of the public trust related to his handling of the border crisis.

“He’s guilty of aiding and abetting the complete invasion of our country by criminals, gang members, terrorists, murderers, rapists, and over 10 million people from over 160 countries into American communities all across the United States,” Greene said during a floor speech ahead of the first vote on Feb. 6.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) listens as Republicans on the House Homeland Security Committee move to impeach Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas over the crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border, at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Since Biden took office, more than 7.5 million illegal immigrants have been encountered attempting to enter the United States, and 6 million of that figure entered illegally between ports of entry, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data. The Biden figure far exceeds the number of illegal immigrants encountered during the Trump administration’s four years and the Obama administration’s eight years combined.

Republicans have called for Mayorkas’s impeachment over the past three years, and Greene has twice introduced articles against Mayorkas and been a leader among House Freedom Caucus members who have called for his removal.

The House Homeland Security Committee has held more than 15 border-related hearings since 2023, when the GOP retook control of the House. Five of the hearings held last year focused specifically on investigating whether Mayorkas was derelict in his duties as leader of the 260,000-person department. 

The five investigative hearings examined how Mayorkas’s actions had “emboldened cartels,” the human cost in terms of people killed as a result of illegal immigration and drug smuggling, the fiscal cost, and waste and abuse in the government’s response.

“After our nearly year-long investigation and subsequent impeachment proceedings, and having exhausted all other options to hold him accountable, it is unmistakably clear to all of us — and to the American people — that Congress must exercise its constitutional duty and impeach Secretary Mayorkas,” the committee said a statement last week. “The Secretary has consistently willfully and systemically refused to follow the laws passed by Congress, abused his authority, and breached the trust of Congress and the American people on numerous occasions.”

House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green (R-TN) delivers a statement as the House Rules Committee meets to prepare the articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for a floor vote at the Capitol in Washington, Monday, Feb. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

The committee approved the two articles in a markup on Jan. 30.

Some House Republicans have remained adamant that impeachment was the wrong approach to resolving the border crisis.

McClintock told NewsNation in an interview Monday night that Johnson had tried to convince him since the first vote to flip, but he refused.

“Mike called me. I explained my reasons, and he was very respectful of them and that was it. I have not had any pressure put on me. Maybe it’s because, well, as Churchill said, they can’t kick me around, I’m not kickable,” McClintock said. “The Constitution hasn’t changed since last week, so my vote is not going to change.”

FILE – Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas attends a House Committee on Homeland Security hearing on worldwide threats to the United States, Nov. 15, 2023, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)

DHS sought to cast doubt on Republicans’ approach to impeachment, blasting out a statement early Tuesday morning that listed examples of Republicans who at times have questioned the need for impeachment, including Sens. James Lankford (R-OK), Kevin Cramer (R-ND), and Mitt Romney (R-UT).

“House Republicans’ baseless push to impeach Secretary Mayorkas has already failed once, with bipartisan opposition,” DHS said in a statement. “If Members of Congress care about our national security, they should listen to their fellow Republicans and stop wasting time on this pointless, unconstitutional impeachment — time that could be spent addressing the issue by advancing bipartisan legislation to fix our broken immigration laws and provide needed resources for border security.”

DHS has argued that its agency CBP has seized more fentanyl at the border year over year, including in 2023, and that rising seizures are evidence of its success in preventing the drug from entering the country from Mexico despite Republicans’ complaints that the Biden administration is not doing enough.

Republicans have alleged that although Mayorkas has not committed a statutory crime, he has blown up parole programs to admit illegal immigrants en masse when that outcome was not the intention of the law. 

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Still, Democrats have questioned the legal grounds for the impeachment. They charged Republicans with waging a politically driven show during an election year over nothing more than differences in opinion on immigration issues.

The last Cabinet official to be impeached by the House was Secretary of War William Belknap in 1876.

Samantha-Jo Roth contributed to this report.