Table Of Content
- More from CBS News
- New York Times Analysis
- Editorial: Two misconceptions and a truth about the U.S.-Mexico border
- Opinion: My mother set herself on fire. Why do people choose to self-immolate?
- Senate rejects impeachment articles against Mayorkas, ending trial against Cabinet secretary
- House Republicans release articles of impeachment against Alejandro Mayorkas
"What is glaringly missing from these articles is any real charge or even a shred of evidence of high crimes or misdemeanors - the Constitutional standard for impeachment," the ranking Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee, Bennie Thompson, said in a statement. "That should come as no surprise because Republicans' so-called 'investigation' of Secretary Mayorkas has been a remarkably fact-free affair." The Senate voted to end Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas' impeachment trial on a party-line vote of 51-49.
House Homeland Security Chairman Mark Green becomes fourth GOP committee leader to announce retirement - New York Post
House Homeland Security Chairman Mark Green becomes fourth GOP committee leader to announce retirement.
Posted: Wed, 14 Feb 2024 08:00:00 GMT [source]
More from CBS News
Spokesperson Mia Ehrenberg called the impeachment articles against the secretary "baseless attacks." Mr. Mayorkas testified that the Afghan arrivals go through a painstaking vetting process. In the report that accompanies these charges, Republicans point to inspector general findings that the department did not always have all the required data, and therefore probably let people into the country who had not been fully vetted. Republicans and Democrats have agreed that the standard for migrants claiming a credible fear of persecution if returned to their home countries needs to be changed to ensure that fewer frivolous asylum claims are made. The bipartisan Senate deal would raise the bar for claiming such a fear and seek to reduce the processing time for asylum applicants to no more than six months. In this case, Texas and Louisiana sued Mr. Mayorkas over policies that they said undermined federal law ordering that certain migrants "shall" be detained.
House Republicans release impeachment articles against Mayorkas amid push to remove him over the border - ABC News
House Republicans release impeachment articles against Mayorkas amid push to remove him over the border.
Posted: Sun, 28 Jan 2024 08:00:00 GMT [source]
New York Times Analysis
While the Senate is obligated to hold a trial under the rules of impeachment once the charges are walked across the Capitol, the proceedings may not last long. Democrats are expected to try to dismiss or table the charges later this week before the full arguments get underway. This charge goes back to a hearing in 2022 when Mr. Mayorkas testified that his agency had "operational control" of the border. Republicans accuse him of lying, citing the 2006 Secure Fence Act, which defines operational control as the absence of any unlawful crossings of migrants or drugs, which no administration has ever achieved. This is referring to group-based parole programs that the administration has set up to let people fleeing war-torn countries, like Afghanistan and Ukraine, or certain economically ravaged countries to live and work in the United States temporarily. The Biden administration has expanded the number of such programs available, which House Republicans argue is an abuse of the president’s power under immigration law to parole people into the country on humanitarian or public benefit grounds.
Editorial: Two misconceptions and a truth about the U.S.-Mexico border
"Congressional Republicans should stop wasting time with unfounded attacks, and instead do their job by passing bipartisan legislation to properly fund the Department's vital national security missions and finally fix our broken immigration system," a DHS spokesperson said in a statement. Many Republicans in Congress want to punish Mayorkas for the Biden administration's handling of the U.S.-Mexico border, claiming that the secretary has failed to enforce the nation's laws and stop tens of thousands of migrants from crossing the border. As was done for the two Donald Trump impeachments, the impeachment managers escorted a pair of articles from the House chamber, across the Rotunda and onto the Senate floor. The solemn procession of 11 GOP impeachment managers or prosecutors was led by Homeland Security Chairman Mark Green, R-Tenn., and far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., who authored the original Mayorkas articles.
Immigration
Republicans seized on the opportunity to assail Mayorkas, blaming him for the humanitarian crisis at the country’s southern border. Testifying separately from the trial before the House Homeland Security Committee Tuesday, Mayorkas responded to a few questions about the impeachment, telling members he is focused on his job. Mayorkas is not the only Biden administration official the House Republicans want to impeach. They have filed legislation to impeach a long list including Vice President Kamala Harris, Attorney General Merrick Garland, FBI Director Christopher Wray and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. The Biden administration also maintains that Mayorkas has complied with the House committee's requests.
Opinion: My mother set herself on fire. Why do people choose to self-immolate?
The real mistake, they argue, would have been to treat the case Republicans brought against the homeland security secretary as legitimate, rather than a thinly veiled attempt to amplify border security as a political issue and create chaos in the Senate. Democrats then voted to adjourn the trial, just one day after House Republicans presented the articles to the Senate. Chuck Schumer, the senate majority leader, moved to dismiss the charges outright, arguing that a cabinet official cannot be removed from office for implementing the policies of the administration he serves.
Senate rejects impeachment articles against Mayorkas, ending trial against Cabinet secretary
Committee Chairman Mark Green is heading toward a vote on Mayorkas’ impeachment by the end of the month, setting up action by the full House as soon as February — which would be a first for a Cabinet official in nearly 150 years. ” the sergeant-at-arms proclaimed, reminding senators that they were to “keep silent on pain of imprisonment” for the duration of the trial. He charged Republicans instead to join Democrats in passing the bipartisan Senate border bill they derailed at Trump’s behest. “As they work on impeachment, I work in advancing the missions of the Department of Homeland Security.
The rare step against a Cabinet member drew outrage from Democrats and the agency as a politically motivated stunt lacking the constitutional basis to remove Mayorkas from office. This sideshow is about scoring political points, because even if the House did vote to impeach, Senate Republicans seem unwilling to participate in the charade. (Only once has a Cabinet secretary been impeached. In 1876, Secretary of War William Belknap was impeached by the House but acquitted by the Senate.) Nor would removing Mayorkas change border policy. Johnson delayed sending the articles to the Senate for weeks while both chambers finished work on government funding legislation and took a two-week recess. Johnson had said he would send them to the Senate last week, but he punted again after Senate Republicans said they wanted more time to prepare.
Ukraine, Israel aid advances in rare House vote as Democrats help Republicans push it forward
Though the House voted to impeach Mayorkas in February in a historic vote that marked the first time a Cabinet secretary has been impeached in nearly 150 years, House leaders opted to wait until after a government funding fight to present the issue to the Senate. And although they intended to begin the process last week, Senate Republicans made a push to delay the proceedings until this week amid concerns over attendance. The House narrowly voted in February to impeach Mayorkas for his handling of the U.S.-Mexico border. Mayorkas faced two articles of impeachment filed by the Homeland Security Committee arguing that he “willfully and systematically” refused to enforce existing immigration laws and that he breached the public trust by lying to Congress and saying the border was secure.
Democrats cast the impeachment effort as election-year political theater designed to draw attention to the situation at the border, one of the president’s biggest liabilities. Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has made immigration the centerpiece of his campaign for the White House. At a news conference at the border in November post-midterms, McCarthy said the incoming GOP House majority would open investigations that could lead to impeachment proceedings. Biden has also asked Congress to approve requests for more border patrol agents and immigration court judges, but Republicans have refused, saying Biden should use his executive authority to stem the flow of migrants.
Impeachment is only the first step toward removing an official from office, followed by a Senate trial, which could result in removal. Last week’s failed vote to impeach Mayorkas — a surprise outcome rarely seen on such a high-profile issue — was a stunning display in the chamber that has been churning through months of GOP chaos since the ouster of the previous House speaker. Various House Republicans have prepared legislation to begin deporting migrants who were temporarily allowed into the U.S. under the Biden administration’s policies, many as they await adjudication of asylum claims. In a frantic scene of vote-tallying on the House floor, the GOP effort to impeach Mayorkas over his handling of the southern border took on an air of political desperation as Republicans struggle to make good on their priorities. The second impeachment article goes on to accuse Mayorkas of rolling back a series of Trump-era policies including the controversial "Remain in Mexico" program, construction on the southern border wall and international agreements that pressured Central American countries to hold asylum seekers.
Fallon claims Mayorkas has failed to maintain "operational control over the border," "willfully provided perjurious, false, and misleading testimony to Congress" and "knowingly slandered his own hardworking Border Patrol agents and mislead the general public." House impeachment managers previewed some of their arguments at a hearing with Mayorkas on Tuesday morning on President Joe Biden's budget request for the department. "Impeachment should never be used to settle policy disagreements, that sets an awful precedent." "I have been in public service I think about 22 years. I’ve taken the oath I think five times, maybe six. I have adhered to the oath to which I have sworn and I have abided by the law each and every step of the way," he said.
By a single vote, House Republicans impeached Mayorkas in February for his handling of the border. House Republicans are wasting no time on their pledge to again try to bring articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over Mayorkas' handling of immigration and the border. “I will strenuously oppose any effort to table the articles of impeachment and avoid looking the Biden administration’s border crisis squarely in the face,” the Senate minority leader said. After the House transmits the articles of impeachment to the upper chamber, the chamber must schedule a trial to begin the next legislative day, according to Senate rules. With 51 seats controlled by Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents, the majority can speed up, delay or dismiss the impeachment outright.
Schumer called for the votes to dismiss the two charges after Republicans rejected a proposed agreement for Senate debate time and several votes on GOP objections. Missouri Sen. Eric Schmitt stood in the chamber and said Republicans wouldn’t accept Schumer’s offer because Democrats were “bulldozing 200 years of precedent” on impeachments by trying to dismiss the trial. Since then, Johnson has delayed sending the articles to the Senate for weeks while both chambers finished work on government funding legislation and took a two-week recess.
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