Republican Impeachment : Fails 216 votes New Defections

Republican Impeachment : Fails 216 votes New Defections

 

Republican Impeachment of Mayorkas Fails Amid G.O.P. Defections

The House unexpectedly defeated the attempts to impeach the homeland security secretary, as lower-class members objected to what they saw as an abuse of the procedure.

Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the secretary of homeland security, was not impeached by the US House of Representatives on Tuesday.

Republican Impeachment : Fails 216 votes Defections

This was due to dissent from a few Republicans who refused to back the measure, which essentially was a partisan indictment of President Biden’s immigration policies.

Speaker Mike Johnson, who had threatened to indict Mr. Mayorkas and stated confidence that he had the support to charge him with serious crimes and misdemeanors for failing to secure the US border with security measures, was deeply disappointed by the attempt’s failure.

Mexico in the midst of an influx. For over a year, House Republicans have made this promise.

Despite three G.O.P. defections by Representatives Ken Buck of Colorado, Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin, and Tom McClintock of California, Republican leaders initially appeared to have secured a victory in an unusual and chaotic scene on the House floor.

However, it was lost when Representative Al Green, a Texas Democrat recuperating from abdominal surgery, appeared to cast a ballot while still in his hospital clothes.

For several minutes, Republican leaders allowed the vote to continue, frantically trying to secure the required number of votes for the charges while Democrats booed and cried, “Order! Order!” and the vote total remained tied.

Ultimately, they were unable to defeat the opposition and 216 votes against the measure meant that it failed.

 

The House Homeland Security Committee last week gave its approval to two articles accusing Mr. Mayorkas of disobeying the law and betraying public confidence.

However, given their tiny House majority, Republican leaders never made sure they had the necessary support to pass the impeachment before rushing it through the committee and to the floor in response to pressure from the hard right over the last few weeks.

Prior to Tuesday’s vote, there were indications that the result was uncertain.

As the deadline approached, some Republicans expressed their reluctance to remove a cabinet secretary who is executing the directives of the administration.

Secretary Mayorkas is accountable for

Mr. McClintock defended his denial of the allegations on the House floor, saying, “We know that’s not grounds for impeachment because the American founders specifically rejected it. maladministration of our immigration laws on a cosmic scale.”

According to him, cabinet secretaries are subject to impeachment only if they commit crimes related to their position; they cannot be removed for implementing presidential directives.

It is not possible to resolve this border crisis by swapping out left-wing officials.

For weeks, Mr. Buck had made it clear that he was against the change. Furthermore, Mr. Gallagher and other Republicans had privately voiced their concerns to their colleagues but had declined to disclose their vote choices.

Their opposition aligned them with Democrats, former homeland security secretaries, and experts in constitutional law, including a number of conservatives had condemned the charges.

They argued that Republicans were trying to spin a policy dispute into a constitutional indictment, with no evidence that Mr. Mayorkas’s conduct rose to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors.

“We have serious problems at the border — no one denies that — but these are not serious people,” said Representative Adam B.

Republican Impeachment : Fails 216 votes Defections

Schiff, Democrat of California and a lead prosecutor during the House Democrats’ first impeachment of former President Donald J. Trump. “This impeachment is baseless, it is unconstitutional and it should be defeated.”

Republicans’ failed effort at impeachment in the House unfolded as they cheered on the demise of a Senate effort to pass a bipartisan national security supplemental package that would crack down on border crossings.

For weeks, Mr. Johnson has been warning that the Senate bill, which Mr. Mayorkas helped to negotiate, would be dead on arrival in the House.

That dissuaded many Senate Republicans from supporting the measure, which was expected to fail in a test vote on Wednesday. Democrats, accusing Republicans of taking their marching orders from Mr. Trump, warned that G.O.P. members would suffer political consequences for trying to impeach Mr. Mayorkas, which they said amounted to pursuing a political vendetta, instead of working on bipartisan legislation to improve border security.

“You really want to impeach Joe Biden, but you realized that that is politically unpopular,” Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, said on the floor.

Republican Impeachment : Fails 216 votes Defections

“You will live with this like a scarlet letter,” he told Republicans, adding that Mr. Mayorkas should treat the impeachment “like a badge of honor because it’s worthless, it means nothing, it’s fake, it’s fraudulent and it’s foolish.”

It was unclear how Republicans planned to regroup after the defeat, given how much capital leaders had placed on pursuing the impeachment charges — and how politically important the issue of the border is expected to be for the G.O.P. in an election year.

As of late Tuesday night, House Republican leaders had not given up on impeaching Mr. Mayorkas, and were making plans at a second attempt in the near future.

But the only likely way to achieve a different outcome would be if Representative Steve Scalise, Republican of Louisiana and the majority leader who is going through cancer treatment and missed Tuesday’s vote, is present.

“This is not the end of our efforts to hold Secretary Mayorkas accountable,” Representative Mark E. Green, Republican of Tennessee and the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, said in a statement late Tuesday.

“I look forward to Leader Scalise’s return.”

At the tail end of the vote, Representative Blake D. Moore, Republican of Utah, switched his vote to “no” and then moved to reconsider the matter, which would allow leaders to bring it up again at another time.

“The truth is, the extreme MAGA Republicans running the House of Representatives don’t want solutions, they want a political issue,” Representative Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the top Democrat on the homeland security panel, said on the floor.

Mr. Thompson denounced the Mayorkas impeachment as a ploy “to distort the Constitution and the secretary’s record to cover up their inability and unwillingness to work with Democrats to strengthen border security.”

Critics of the case pointed out that trying to remove the secretary was unlikely to bring about a change in the Biden administration’s border policies, and would not suddenly equip officials with the powers and resources they needed to do a more effective job at carrying out the nation’s border enforcement laws.

Republican Impeachment : Fails 216 votes Defections

 

On Tuesday, a bipartisan group of three former secretaries of homeland security — Michael Chertoff, who served under President George W. Bush, and Janet Napolitano and Jeh Johnson — admonished Republicans for focusing on impeachment instead of working to pass laws to improve the border.

“Impeaching Secretary Mayorkas solves nothing and leaves our outdated immigration system exactly where it is now — broken,” they wrote.

“We urge you to set aside this groundless impeachment effort and get back to solving America’s real problems.”

Their argument that removing Mr. Mayorkas from office would do little to remedy the problems at the border seemed to resonate even with some of the Republicans who voted in favor of impeaching him.

“Today we are in fact impeaching a pawn,” Representative Darrell Issa, Republican of California, said of Mr. Mayorkas on the floor, adding, “He is just part of the high crimes and misdemeanors of the president of the United States.”

The first article of impeachment accused Mr. Mayorkas of replacing Trump-era policies, such as the program commonly called Remain in Mexico, which required many migrants to wait at the southwestern border for their immigration court dates, with “catch and release” policies that allowed migrants to roam free in the United States.

Republican Impeachment : Fails 216 votes Defections

Republicans charged that Mr. Mayorkas ignored multiple mandates of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which states that migrants “shall be detained” pending decisions on asylum and removal orders, and acted beyond his authority to parole migrants into the country.

Democrats pushed back forcefully, noting that Mr. Mayorkas, like previous homeland security secretaries, had the right to set policies to manage the waves of migrants arriving at the border.

That includes allowing certain migrants into the country temporarily on humanitarian grounds and prioritizing which migrants to detain, such as the program commonly called Remain in Mexico, which required many migrants to wait at the southwestern border for their immigration court dates, with “catch and release” policies that allowed migrants to roam free in the United States.

Republicans charged that Mr. Mayorkas ignored multiple mandates of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which states that migrants “shall be detained” pending decisions on asylum and removal orders, and acted beyond his authority to parole migrants into the country.

Democrats pushed back forcefully, noting that Mr. Mayorkas, like previous homeland security secretaries, had the right to set policies to manage the waves of migrants arriving at the border.

That includes allowing certain migrants into the country temporarily on humanitarian grounds and prioritizing which migrants to detain, , particularly when working with limited resources.

Republican Impeachment : Fails 216 votes Defections

The second article accused Mr. Mayorkas of breaching the public trust by misrepresenting the state of the border, and stymieing congressional efforts to investigate him.

Republicans base those accusations on an assertion by Mr. Mayorkas in 2022 that his department had “operational control” over the border, which is defined under a 2006 statute as the absence of any unlawful crossings of migrants or drugs.

Mr. Mayorkas has said he was referring instead to a less absolute definition used by the Border Patrol.

They also accuse Mr. Mayorkas of having failed to produce documents, including materials he was ordered to give them under subpoena, during an investigation into his border policies and evading their efforts to get him to testify as part of their impeachment proceedings.

Administration officials have countered that Mr. Mayorkas has produced tens of thousands of pages of documents in accordance with the panel’s requests.

He offered to testify in person, but Republicans on the panel rescinded their invitation for him to appear after the two sides encountered scheduling problems.

Republican Impeachment : Fails 216 votes Defections

Drivers of the impeachment effort nonetheless sought to heap blame at Mr. Mayorkas’s feet during the floor debate on Tuesday.

“He’s guilty of aiding and abetting the complete invasion of our country by criminals, gang members, terrorists, murderers, rapists and over 10 million people from 160 countries into American communities all across the United States,” Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, said on the floor, in one of the most

READ MORE:

1. Health and Fitness Tips for You

2. Upcoming New Movies

3. Get New Jobs Directly From Companies FREE Visa

4.Latest News of Cryptocurrency and Bitcoin

5. Real Estate Business for you

6. Latest News

7. Best Insurance Policy for Everyone

READ MORE:

• 1. Strategic Management Process: Top5 Jobs In Dubai FREE VISA Apply Now
• 2. Vancouver Time fighting for $12,000 in travel insurance Nightmare FREE
• 3. DIABETIC DIET : A PROFESSIONAL’S GUIDE TO A WARM AND WELL-BEING
• 4. NICOLAS CAGE STATES : HE HAS 3 OR 4 MORE MOVIES LEFT NOW
• 5. EMPRESS CRACKS: FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE APRIL
• 6. DESPITE MEANING: DESPITE HIGH RATES, MORE US HOME BUYERS ARE WILLING TO BUY
• 7. A 44-YEAR-OLD BOSTON WOMAN WAS KILLED BY A SHARK ATTACK IN