US House Republicans win impeachment of Biden's top border official
By David Morgan and Richard Cowan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday narrowly voted to impeach Democratic President Joe Biden's top border official, accusing him of lax policies that encouraged illegal immigration.
By a vote of 214-213, the House approved two articles of impeachment accusing Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas of not enforcing U.S. immigration laws, which Republicans argue led to record flows of migrants across the U.S.-Mexico border, and making false statements to Congress.
It came a week after a similar vote failed in a legislative defeat for Speaker Mike Johnson. Republican Representative Steve Scalise, who had been receiving treatment for cancer, was not present for last week's vote, but returned to Washington this week, providing a crucial vote.
But it is highly unlikely that the Democratic-majority Senate will vote to oust Mayorkas.
A record number of migrants have illegally crossed the border from Mexico since Biden took office in 2021, and former President Donald Trump has made it a major focus of his campaign against Biden.
Mayorkas has said he does not bear responsibility for the border situation, blaming it instead on a broken U.S. immigration system that Congress has not been able to fix.
Constitutional experts and even some Republicans and have said the House investigation of Mayorkas failed to provide evidence of the «high crimes and misdemeanors» that the U.S. Constitution cites as reasons for impeachment. Instead, they cast the fight as merely «policy disputes.»
The number of migrants arrested crossing the southern border illegally dropped by 50% in January from high levels in December, U.S. Customs and Border Protection
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