This week, the GOP majority in the House approved an impeachment of Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, furthering the party’s usage of southern border-related issues in high-profile political endeavors. The move tees up an impeachment trial in the Senate, though such proceedings would be almost certain to end in acquittal.
“House Republicans will be remembered by history for trampling on the Constitution for political gain rather than working to solve the serious challenges at our border,” a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said. “While Secretary Mayorkas was helping a group of Republican and Democratic Senators develop bipartisan solutions to strengthen border security and get needed resources for enforcement, House Republicans have wasted months with this baseless, unconstitutional impeachment.”
And Republicans in the Senate and House turned — in concert with Donald Trump — against the deal that spokesperson Mia Ehrenberg was referencing. Republicans voted it down in the Senate, sinking a wide-reaching proposal that set up additional foreign aid and would have provided the federal government new powers to shut the southern border between ports of entry in periods of particularly high crossings. Republicans were accused of advancing Trump’s political ambitions in ultimately sinking the deal, since leaving arguable problems in place helps Trump to keep running his campaign on dubious pledges for progress.
President Joe Biden shared a similarly condemning statement after the House approved Mayorkas’ impeachment. Biden also pushed for the legislative chamber to advance a deal recently approved by the Senate that provides for new foreign aid including some $60 billion worth of support for Ukraine amid the Russian military’s ongoing invasion. The deal left out the border ambitions included in the other deal that went down no matter the extensive, bipartisan negotiations. Already, Speaker of the House Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) has spoken critically of the aid deal, suggesting — though seemingly not saying outright — that he’d oppose even bringing it forward for a vote in his legislative chamber. Proponents argue the U.S. has a strategic interest in seeing a Russian defeat.
