House lawmakers on Tuesday failed to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, under whose tenure more than 10 million illegal immigrants have entered the US - doubling the existing population.
Three Republicans voted with House Democrats - while a fourth, Blake Moore (R-UT) flipped his "Aye" to a "No" in order to preserve the ability to bring 'Motions to Reconsider' (which can only be brought by someone who voted 'no').
The open-border Republicans who voted against impeachment are:
- Ken Buck (CO)
- Tom McClintonck (CA)
- Mike Gallagher (WI)
In a Monday op-ed in The Hill, Buck said that while Mayorkas may be incompetent, his behavior wasn't impeachable, and that doing so would set a bad precedent.
The vote to impeach Mayorkas was held as a bipartisan effort in the Senate to send $60 billion to Ukraine and lock in 1.5 million illegal migrants per year unraveled.
In the articles of impeachment, Mayorkas was accused of demonstrating a "willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law," and "breaching the public trust," which Democrats suggested was nothing more than disagreements over policy or performance failings, but not impeachable crimes.
The border has become a central concern of Congress and the White House, as arrests hit records in recent months. Border Patrol agents in December set a monthly record of nearly 250,000 arrests of migrants caught crossing the border illegally, up 31% from November, with daily arrests sometimes topping 10,000. An additional 50,000 migrants entered the country in December at legal border crossings to seek asylum.
Democrats said the effort to impeach Mayorkas amounted to political theater at the start of a heated presidential-election campaign in which immigration is expected to be a top issue for voters. -WSJ
According to Rep. Mark Green (R-TN), Mayorkas "is the very type of public official the Framers feared—someone who would cast aside the laws passed by a co-equal branch of government, replacing those with his own preferences."
On Monday, the White House said that impeaching Mayorkas "would be an unprecedented and unconstitutional act of political retribution that would do nothing to solve the challenges our nation faces in securing the border," and suggested that he's been a great DHS secretary.
If the House had succeeded in impeaching Mayorkas, he would have been the second cabinet secretary in US history to be impeached.
With friends like these, who needs enemies?
