Watch Live: House panel debates Mayorkas impeachment ahead of committee vote

Washington — The House Homeland Security Committee is meeting on Tuesday to advance articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, likely paving the way for a full House vote in the coming days. 

House Republicans on Sunday released two articles of impeachment against President Biden's top immigration official, accusing him of "willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law" and "breach of public trust" over the administration's handling of the migrant crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border. 

GOP Rep. Mark Green of Tennessee, the committee's chairman, said the panel had "exhausted all other options" to hold Mayorkas accountable for defying laws passed by Congress. 

"The results have been catastrophic and have endangered the lives and livelihoods of all Americans," Green said during Tuesday's hearing, going on to accuse committee Democrats of turning "a blind eye to the victims of the border crisis" while "berating" Republicans for their investigation into the secretary. 

Mayorkas' actions have "forced our hand," Green said, adding that House Republicans "cannot allow this border crisis to continue." 

"We cannot allow this man to remain in office any longer," he said. "The time for accountability is now."

Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the top Democrat on the committee, characterized the impeachment effort as a "sham" and said the articles lack evidence of high crimes or misdemeanors — the constitutional basis for impeachment. 

"This is a terrible day for the committee, United States Constitution and our great country," Thompson said. "Republican members of Congress sworn to support and defend the Constitution are rejecting the framers clear intent, and over two centuries of precedent in favor of a sham impeachment."

The committee, which includes 18 Republicans and 15 Democrats, plans to vote on advancing the impeachment articles to the House floor later on Tuesday.

The committee meeting

Republicans on the committee refuted the claims that the accusations in the articles fail to meet the constitutional threshold for impeachment by arguing that the language could have been interpreted differently at the time of the country's founding. They said that rather than referring to a criminal offense, a misdemeanor would have referred to the act of demeaning oneself — essentially setting a lower bar for impeachment.

But Democrats pushed back on the interpretation. Rep. Seth Magaziner of Rhode Island said the Constitution is "very clear that you cannot impeach someone because you think they're doing a bad job."

"If that becomes the new precedent, then the floodgates will open and you will have frivolous impeachments from here until the end of time," Magaziner said. 

The impeachment push comes as the GOP attempts to make border security a central theme of the 2024 campaign. Many House Republicans, however, also oppose an immigration deal that Mayorkas helped negotiate with a bipartisan group of senators aimed at clamping down on illegal border crossings. GOP opposition has threatened its chances of passage in the lower chamber. 

"The real reason we are here, as we all know, is because Donald Trump wants to run on immigration as his No. 1 issue in the November election," Rep. Dan Goldman, a New York Democrat, said.

Democrats tried to slow down the proceedings on Tuesday, offering a motion to adjourn within an hour after the hearing began. But the motion failed as Republicans moved forward with the impeachment push.

The first impeachment article accuses Mayorkas of repeatedly violating the law by allowing the release of migrants who are awaiting court proceedings. The second article alleges Mayorkas lied to lawmakers about whether the southern border was secure and obstructed congressional oversight of the department. 

Goldman criticized committee Republicans for making accusations against Mayorkas that they say warrant impeachment, like a breach of public, "which does not exist."

"You have a right to express your dissatisfaction in any way you choose," Goldman said, noting that House Republicans can make their case to voters. "But you do not have a right to demean this institution, to bastardize the impeachment clause of the Constitution, to belittle the standard of constitutional impeachment to such a degree that you can't even produce a legal memo in support of your articles of impeachment that do not exist in history and do not exist in the law."

House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana said last week the House would vote on the impeachment articles "as soon as possible" after the committee approves them. 

The charges against Mayorkas face an all but certain failure in the Democratic-controlled Senate, which requires a two-thirds majority to convict and remove him. But his impeachment would be historic given that he'd be the first Cabinet official to be impeached in almost 150 years. 

The Mayorkas impeachment fight 

On the eve of the committee's meeting to advance the articles, Democrats released a report defending Mayorkas' actions and accusing Republicans of abusing their impeachment power. 

"Impeachment is an extraordinary remedy under the United States Constitution. It is not a tool for policy or political differences, and constitutional scholars and even some Republicans agree," Democrats said in the 29-page report, which slammed the proceedings as a political exercise meant to "satiate the extreme MAGA base." 

The committee sped through impeachment proceedings this month, holding just two hearings in which lawmakers heard testimony from three state attorneys general, as well as from people whose family members have died as a result of fentanyl overdoses or violent crime. 

Democrats said Republicans failed to give Mayorkas a chance to testify, denying him of "a meaningful opportunity to respond to the baseless charges against him." 

Republicans and the Homeland Security Department clashed over whether Mayorkas would appear in person during the impeachment proceedings. Mayorkas declined to attend the hearing on Jan. 18, citing a conflicting meeting with Mexican officials about border enforcement, but agreed to testify at a later date. Green accused Mayorkas of playing a game of "cat and mouse," and the border chief was instead instructed to submit written testimony before the end of the month. 

But the committee's 18 Republican members then decided they did not need to wait to hear from Mayorkas, announcing after the final hearing that they all supported impeaching him. 

In a letter to lawmakers ahead of Tuesday's vote, Mayorkas called on Congress to step up and provide a legislative solution to the border crisis. He said the policies negotiated by senators would "make a substantial difference at our border."

He also hit back at Republican attacks, calling their accusations "politically motivated." 

"I assure you that your false accusations do not rattle me and do not divert me from the law enforcement and broader public service mission to which I have devoted most of my career and to which I remain devoted," Mayorkas said. 

In response to the release of the impeachment articles, the department on Sunday said the effort was a "distraction from other vital national security priorities and the work Congress should be doing to actually fix our broken immigration laws." 

"They don't want to fix the problem; they want to campaign on it," the department said in a memo. 

Nicole Sganga and Jaala Brown contributed reporting. 

In:
• U.S.-Mexico Border
• Impeachment
• Alejandro Mayorkas

Caitlin Yilek

Caitlin Yilek is a politics reporter at cbsnews.com and is based in Washington, D.C. She previously worked for the Washington Examiner and The Hill, and was a member of the 2022 Paul Miller Washington Reporting Fellowship with the National Press Foundation.

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