GOP effort to get Mayorkas to tackle the border hits a dead end in the Senate

The dismissal of articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas ends a nearly two-year campaign to oust the official from his post — ending the legislative move to make him the face of the border while also raising questions about what comes next for a Republican Party determined to put migration front and center.

For Senate Democrats, Mayorkas’ impeachment was a dead end, failing to demonstrate any high crimes or misdemeanors. With the quick rejection of the articles, the Senate determined that there were no constitutional grounds for impeachment of the secretary.

“We should have debates on the issues, not impeachments on the issues. We shouldn’t say that when you disagree with someone about politics it suddenly becomes a high crime and misdemeanor. It would degrade the government,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (DN.Y.) said at a news conference after the vote.

“The dangerous precedent is not the one the Republicans talk about. But let impeachment take the place of political differences. Cabinet after cabinet could be subject to this – we cannot allow that to happen.”

It was a response in line with criticism from several conservatives outside the halls of the House, from legal scholar Jonathan Turley to former Bush-era Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who said GOP lawmakers had not made a case to oust Mayorkas from office. . his work.

But leaving the Senate shortly after the impeachment effort failed, Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) suggested there would be consequences for the speed with which Schumer eliminated the articles.

“The market at the border — it helps the discussion because I think the people who run it didn’t want it to be publicly outed about how bad this is and how big an election issue it’s going to be,” he said. .

“I think they may have gambled that it sweeps everything under the rug, kind of softens the conversation. I think you could perhaps make the opposite case. And I think the border is still going to be the border… You get to the heart of the matter, and I think all the disorder is still there.”

The party-line votes — only Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) voted present on one of the articles — cap a legislative effort that began almost as soon as Republicans won the House majority.

Rep. Pat Fallon (R-Texas) introduced the first resolution to impeach Mayorkas shortly after the Republican Party selected a president. Several colleagues followed suit, but it was the repeated efforts of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) to force a vote on the issue that accelerated its consideration in the House.

Still, it’s an unsatisfactory ending for those who championed the effort.

“I don’t think we can do anything,” Greene said.

“I mean, if we had courage in the House, we could refuse to fund a salary – there are things like that in the next budget process… If Republicans remember that controlling the House means having the power of the budget, we can do all kinds of things. We really can. We can do anything, but this requires leadership that has the courage to move forward. And we don’t have that now.”

The House articles took an unusual approach to impeachment, accusing Mayorkas of violating immigration laws as well as “breach of public trust” – arguing that he had violated his oath of office.

Most of the articles list several immigration statutes that Republicans say Mayorkas violated. This includes a law that requires the detention of all migrants entering the country – something no administration has ever done. It also suggests that the enforcement policies established by Mayorkas were illegal, even though they have been upheld by the Supreme Court. Immigration law experts also said Mayorkas’ policies are in line with immigration statutes and how they were carried out by previous administrations.

The articles also blame Mayorkas for suspending several Trump administration policies — including one that was actually raised by Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

Republicans also accused Mayorkas of lying to Congress when he said the border was operationally secure, arguing that it did not meet the definition of the Secure Fence Act, which says such a standard is only met when not a single person or property improperly crosses the border.

Mayorkas, when appearing before Congress, suggested that it was inappropriate to subject him to that definition.

At a hearing in July, Mayorkas said: “With regard to the definition of operational control, I do not use the definition that appears in the Secure Fences Act. And the Secure Fence Act statutorily states that operational control is defined as the prevention of all illegal entry into the United States. By that definition, no administration has ever had operational control.”

Still, Senate Republicans suggested Wednesday that the response constituted a crime, since witnesses could be prosecuted for making false statements to Congress.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) suggested that the rejection of the articles demonstrated their lack of substance.

“Today’s decision by the Senate to reject House Republicans’ baseless attacks on Secretary Mayorkas definitively proves that there were no evidence or constitutional grounds to justify impeachment,” DHS spokeswoman Mia Ehrenberg said in a statement.

“As he has done over more than 20 years of dedicated public service, Secretary Mayorkas will continue to work every day to enforce our laws and protect our country. It’s time for congressional Republicans to support the Department’s vital mission rather than wasting time playing political games and getting in the way of common sense and bipartisan border reforms.”

Senate Republicans on Wednesday lamented the lack of debate.

“In fact, we ignored the instructions of the Chamber that should hold a trial. We have no evidence, no procedure,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said on the floor.

“This is not a proud day in the history of the Senate.”

But Schumer argued that Republicans are to blame.

“Instead of taking this time to have the debate that Republicans said was imperative, they denied our fair and reasonable offer and didn’t seem to know what to do,” he said after the votes.

Still, Republicans, including Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), suggested party-line votes might have been different if there had been a full trial.

“I could have gone either way, but it would depend on what the evidence showed. I hadn’t pre-judged and I certainly hadn’t decided to convict,” she said.

“But I think we did not fulfill our constitutional duty by not allowing the impeachment managers to present their case, by not hearing the defense lawyer respond to the charges. This sets a terrible precedent.”

The path from impeachment to approval in the Chamber, however, was not smooth either.

The resolution required two votes to pass in the lower chamber after the first vote narrowly failed when three Republican lawmakers voted against the measure, accusing their colleagues of politicizing impeachment and failing to demonstrate that Mayorkas committed a crime.

Democrats complained widely Wednesday about being forced to endure multiple GOP efforts to avoid quick impeachment, with Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) saying it provided a big lesson.

“People want to see work carried out on the southern border. We had the opportunity to do things on the southern border, but we didn’t do it,” he said, referring to a border security package negotiated by a bipartisan group of senators and killed by House conservatives.

“This was a political impeachment. The precedent established here was: do not carry out political impeachments.”

Mychael Schnell and Al Weaver contributed.