By Lisa Mascaro and Rebecca Santana | Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Marching ahead with multiple impeachment plans, House Republicans set their sights Wednesday on Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who they intend to prove is “derelict in his duty” over handling the surge of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border.
The chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, Rep. Mark Green, launched Mayorkas impeachment proceedings at a peculiar political moment: On one side of the Capitol, a bipartisan group of senators has been engaged in almost daily negotiations with Mayorkas over a landmark border security package. On the other, the House wants to remove him from office.
Opening the hearing, Green, R-Tenn, said there is “no reasonable alternative but to pursue the possibility of impeachment.”
The House panel has been circling Mayorkas all year, at times expected to lurch ahead with impeachment proceedings against him as the border crossings hit record highs, topping 10,000 on some days. The number has recently dipped.
But impeaching a Cabinet secretary is rare, having only happened once before in the nation’s history when the House impeached Defense Secretary William Belknap in 1876 over receiving kickbacks in government contracts. Going after an official for a policy dispute, in this instance over the claim that Mayorkas is not upholding immigration laws, is unprecedented.
“You cannot impeach a Cabinet secretary because you don’t like a president’s policies,” said the top Democrat on the committee, Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi.
Thompson said evidence throughout the hearings will show that Mayorkas is, in fact, doing his job. He decried the political dysfunction coming from the House Republican majority. “This is not a legitimate impeachment,” he said.
With the House GOP’s impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, over his son Hunter Biden’s business dealings, lumbering along as lawmakers work to dig up…
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