House Republicans, who will have a tiny two-vote margin in less than three weeks, are still on their winter break despite two impending budget crises that could lead to government shutdowns as soon as January 19. Speaker Mike Johnson allowed the House to go into recess on December 14, ignoring urging from the White House and the Senate for aid packages for Ukraine and Israel. Members are not expected to return until next week.
But dozens of House Republicans, including Speaker Johnson, are headed to Texas Wednesday, betting their focus on the southern border will help them win the November elections. They’re kicking off the year by trying to do something Congress hasn’t done in almost 150 years: impeach a presidential cabinet secretary.
Republicans have been gunning for the Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, since President Joe Biden nominated him three years ago. Born in Havana to Cuban Jewish parents, including a mother whose family fled the Holocaust, Mayorkas is the first Latino, the first immigrant, and the first Cuban American to lead DHS. He was confirmed despite tremendous pushback by Senate Republicans in a 56-43 vote on February 2, 2021, after U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) took the rare step of putting a hold on his nomination.
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Homeland Security Chairman Mark Green (R-TN) announced Tuesday the House will begin impeachment proceedings against Secretary Mayorkas next week, Punchbowl News was first to report, calling it “a major escalation in Green’s nearly year-long probe into Mayorkas.”
The last time Congress impeached a cabinet secretary was in 1876, when they impeached President Ulysses S. Grant’s Secretary of War, William Worth Belknap. He was not convicted by the Senate.
“Our investigation made clear that this crisis finds its foundation in Secretary Mayorkas’ decision-making and refusal to enforce the laws passed by Congress, and that his failure to fulfill his oath of office demands accountability,” Green told Punchbowl News in a statement. “The bipartisan House vote in November to refer articles of impeachment to my Committee only served to highlight the importance of our taking up the impeachment process – which is what we will begin doing next Wednesday.”
Punchbowl News reports “the migrant crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border has arguably been House Republicans’ biggest rallying cry heading into a critical election year. The issue is widely seen as a huge political problem for Democrats and Biden. The president’s poll numbers on this issue are terrible.”
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The White House is pushing back against Republicans’ framing of the issue at the southern border.
“Actions speak louder than words,” White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said in a statement, Politico reports. “House Republicans’ anti-border security record is defined by attempting to cut Customs and Border Protection personnel, opposing President Biden’s record-breaking border security funding, and refusing to take up the President’s supplemental funding request.”
“After voting in 2023 to eliminate over 2,000 Border Patrol agents and erode our capacity to seize fentanyl earlier in 2023, House Republicans left Washington in mid-December even as President Biden and Republicans and Democrats in the Senate remained to forge ahead on a bipartisan agreement,” Bates added.
White House Communications Director Ben LaBolt on social media added, “President Biden has requested $13.6 billion for border enforcement & migration management, increasing the Border Patrol by 1,300, judge teams by 375 and asylum officers by 1600 to expedite the screening process, and critical drug detection technology.”
House Republicans will be at the border Wednesday, “calling for solutions” to the “border crisis,” as Texas CBS affiliate KENS5 reports.
They’re also pushing for the Senate to pass HR2, legislation American Immigration Council policy director Aaron Reichlin-Melnick calls “hardline.”
“Mandates the indefinite detention of toddlers,” “Makes it a federal crime to violate a visa, even unknowingly,” “Empowers DHS to waive every single other law on the books to build, maintain, and operate border infrastructure,” and “Ends 99.9% of asylum,” he says.
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Meanwhile, several far-right Republicans got an early start in Texas, meeting up with a Fox News reporter, telling him, “shut the border down, or we’ll shut the government down. We control the money.”
Wednesday morning Secretary Mayorkas responded to news the House is moving to impeach him.
Watch his remarks below or at this link.