WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives panel on Tuesday began debating impeachment charges against Democratic President Joe Biden’s top border official, a near-unprecedented move that comes as political tensions around immigration ramp up.
The House Homeland Security Committee is considering two articles of impeachment targeting Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. The charges allege Mayorkas intentionally encouraged illegal immigration with lax policies and violated public trust by making false statements to Congress.
Democrats have dismissed the impeachment effort as a political ploy and constitutional experts have said the policy criticisms outlined by Republicans do not meet impeachment’s high standard of misconduct. The only Cabinet member ever to be impeached by the House was former President Ulysses S. Grant’s secretary of war William Belknap in 1876 following allegations of corruption. He was acquitted by the Senate.
Border security is a core issue for Republican voters concerned about a record number of migrants illegally crossing the border since Biden took office in 2021 and the party has made it a focus in the runup to the Nov. 5 elections that will decide control of the White House and Congress.
Republicans fault Biden for rolling back restrictive policies of Republican former President Donald Trump, the leading candidate for his party’s nomination to challenge Biden.
“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, the committee chairman, said in opening remarks at the hearing. “The results have been catastrophic and have endangered the lives and livelihoods of all Americans.”
Mayorkas – a former federal prosecutor – defended his immigration enforcement record and commitment to government service on Tuesday in a letter to Green.
“I assure you that your false accusations do not rattle me and do not divert me from the law enforcement and broader public service mission to which I have devoted most of my career and to which I remain devoted,” Mayorkas wrote.
Mayorkas earlier this month offered to appear before the committee in his own defense but Republicans proceeded to debate the impeachment charges without his testimony.
The House is also holding an impeachment inquiry into Biden himself, a move some Republican hardliners called for shortly after his 2020 election. Trump was impeached twice during his four years in office, though each time Senate Republicans provided enough votes to acquit him.
If impeached by the House, Mayorkas likely would be acquitted in the Senate, where Democrats have a slim majority.
The Biden administration says it aims to create a more orderly and humane immigration system, but the president has increasingly toughened his rhetoric. On Friday, he embraced a yet-unreleased Senate border deal that would create a sweeping authority to expel migrants back to Mexico and said he would “shut down the border” if the bill passed.
Trump has been pushing against that proposal, saying he does not want to make a deal with Democrats in an election year.
House Republicans say impeachment is necessary since Mayorkas has refused to detain migrants caught at the border and allowed too many foreigners to enter legally through emergency “parole” programs.
Representative Bennie Thompson, the top Democrat on the Homeland committee, said Republicans lacked adequate constitutional grounds to impeach Mayorkas and were using the proceedings as a way to fundraise for electoral campaigns.
“If House Republicans were serious about improving conditions at the border, they would negotiate border security legislation with the White House and the Senate,” Thompson said. “They have not.”
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