President Joe Biden issued a swift condemnation of House Republicans’ impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Tuesday, accusing them of playing “petty political games.”
“History will not look kindly on House Republicans for their blatant act of unconstitutional partisanship that has targeted an honorable public servant,” Biden said of Mayorkas, noting that he’s a “Cuban immigrant who came to the United States with his family as political refugees” who “has spent more than two decades serving America with integrity in a decorated career in law enforcement and public service.”
Republicans managed to narrowly impeach Mayorkas Tuesday in a 214-213 vote, with three GOP lawmakers defecting. He is the first cabinet secretary Congress has voted to impeach in nearly 150 years.
The vote came one week after House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) flubbed the math on a previous attempt to impeach Mayorkas, who’s tasked with carrying out current immigration laws.
Republicans have not proven that Mayorkas committed any crimes, let alone the high level ones required to meet the threshold of an impeachable offense. Nevertheless, House leadership has put a target on him, accusing him of “willful” refusal to follow immigration laws and a mishandling of the surge in migration along the U.S.-Mexico border.
“Instead of staging political stunts like this, Republicans with genuine concerns about the border should want Congress to deliver more border resources and stronger border security,” Biden said in his statement.
The GOP’s attack on Mayorkas comes in spite of the Senate introducing bipartisan legislation last month that delivered on Republicans’ request for reduced border crossings and a scaled back asylum system. GOP support for the legislation fell off when former President Donald Trump intervened in the negotiations. Sources told HuffPost that “Trump wants them to kill it because he doesn’t want Biden to have a victory” ahead of the 2024 election they’re both competing in.
“Giving up on real solutions right when they are needed most in order to play politics is not what the American people expect from their leaders,” Biden lamented.
The articles of impeachment don’t stand a chance in the Senate, where even some Republicans have spoken out against the House GOP’s maneuver.