Mayorkas Survives House Impeachment Vote

The United States House of Representatives voted in favor of the Homeland Security Secretary, preventing him from being impeached.

Here are the details of the news.

Mayorkas Survives House Impeachment Vote

Alejandro Mayorkas, the United States Secretary of Homeland Security, survived an impeachment vote in the House of Representatives on Tuesday.

Republican Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene and a few other Republicans introduced an impeachment resolution against Mayorkas in November for his handling of the U.S.-Mexico border crisis.

The impeachment accused him of failing to implement immigration laws and allowing illegal migrants entry into the U.S. It also alleged that Mayorkas earlier lied to lawmakers about the southern border security.

The Homeland Security Secretary faced two charges from the House, ‘willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law’ and ‘breach of public trust.’

The House voted to refer the impeachment resolution to the Homeland Security Committee, which was already investigating Mayorkas.

Several House Republicans were not in favor of impeaching Mayorkas, expressing that the border issues should not be merely grounds to call for the impeachment motion.

Some law professors were also against the motion, asserting that there was no constitutional basis for impeachment.

The committee held its first impeachment hearing in early January. The second and final hearing took place eight days later.

The committee heard statements from mothers of victims of violent crime and fentanyl overdoses, law professors, and three state attorneys general suing Mayorkas.

On Tuesday, the House of Representatives voted 216 to 214 against the impeachment motion, including all Democrats and four Republicans.

Mayorkas, 64, has been serving as the seventh U.S. Holland Security Secretary since 2021. He was born in Havana, Cuba on November 24, 1959. His family moved to Florida after the Cuban Revolution.

At 39, Mayorkas became the youngest U.S. attorney who prosecuted criminals for federal offenses in the Central District of California.

In 2009, former President Barack Obama appointed him as the director of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. He became deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security in 2013.

Mayorkas is the first Latino and first immigrant to lead the Department of Homeland Security.

If the House voting on Tuesday had impeached the Homeland Security Secretary, he would have become the second Cabinet Secretary to be impeached in United States history. William W. Belknap was the first Cabinet Secretary who was impeached in 1876.