House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) signed articles of impeachment against U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas on Monday.
The articles of impeachment are set to be delivered to the U.S. Senate on Tuesday afternoon.
Johnson’s signing of the articles of impeachment against Mayorkas comes after he had rescheduled the Senate’s impeachment trial of Mayorkas for Tuesday instead of Wednesday.
In February, the House of Representatives voted to impeach Mayorkas 214 to 213, making him the first cabinet official to be impeached in almost a century and a half.
While Republican senators such as Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS), and Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) have been trying to push media coverage surrounding the legal charges brought forth against Mayorkas, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has insisted that Mayorkas was improperly impeached over “policy differences.”
“Mr. Schumer wants to prevent the House impeachment managers from presenting evidence of the disaster that has unfolded on the southern border because Mr. Mayorkas refuses to follow the law,” Lee said in a press release. “He wants to avoid news coverage of how bad the border crisis is.”
Last week, Johnson delayed sending the articles of impeachment to the Senate after Republican senators asked for additional time to raise support in order to hold a full impeachment trial.
The articles of impeachment against Mayorkas say:
Throughout his tenure as Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro N. Mayorkas has repeatedly violated laws enacted by Congress regarding immigration and border security. In large part because of his unlawful conduct, millions of aliens have illegally entered the United States on an annual basis with many unlawfully remaining in the United States. His refusal to obey the law is not only an offense against the separation of powers in the Constitution of the United States, it also threatens our national security and has had a dire impact on communities across the country. Despite clear evidence that his willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law has significantly contributed to unprecedented levels of illegal entrants, the increased control of the Southwest border by drug cartels, and the impositions of enormous costs on States and localities affected by the influx of aliens, Alejandro N. Mayorkas has continued in his refusal to comply with the law, and thereby acted to the grave detriment of the interests of the United States.
Mayorkas has previously explained that he is in favor of migration because his parents were migrants, and that he sympathizes with migrants, and supports “equity” between American citizens and foreign migrants.
Despite Mayorkas’ support and sympathy for foreign migrants, American citizens have been faced with the costs, an undisclosed, increasing number of long-term, so-called, “temporary” workers in the U.S., and the impacts increased migration is having on the U.S. educational system.
A report from the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) from March 2023 showed that millions of illegal immigrants who were currently residing in the U.S. were costing American taxpayers more than $150 billion annually.
