Border battles roil US Congress; Republicans push Mayorkas impeachment

On a day that saw the two chambers of Congress engage in dueling debates over the chaotic immigration situation at the southern border with Mexico, the House navigated toward what could be a very close vote on impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. At the same time, the Senate battled over a bipartisan border security deal unveiled late on Sunday that faces a Republican revolt.

The thin U.S. House of Representatives Republican majority faced a test on Tuesday of whether it could hold together to impeach President Joe Biden's top border official, and failure appeared imminent for a Senate bipartisan border security bill. On a day that saw the two chambers of Congress engage in dueling debates over the chaotic immigration situation at the southern border with Mexico, the House navigated toward what could be a very close vote on impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

At the same time, the Senate battled over a bipartisan border security deal unveiled late on Sunday that faces a Republican revolt. "All indications are this bill won't even move forward to the Senate floor. Why? The simple reason: Donald Trump," Biden said at the White House. "Because Donald Trump thinks it's bad for him politically."

On Wednesday, the Senate is scheduled to hold the first procedural vote on the border bill that is coupled with new military aid for Ukraine and Israel. But Republican senators, including some top leaders, were already lining up against it.

Polls show that immigration has become a top worry of voters as Republican former President Donald Trump prepares for a likely November rematch with Biden. Republican opposition to the $118 billion bill gained steam on Tuesday when the party's No. 2 senator, John Thune, told reporters he would vote against it.

Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer pleaded with Republicans to at least allow debate to open on the bill. House Speaker Mike Johnson has said that if the Senate passes it, the bill would be "dead on arrival" in his chamber.

The House's Homeland Security Committee last week approved two articles of impeachment against Mayorkas, a near-unprecedented step to take against a member of a president's cabinet over a policy dispute. With a narrow 219-212 majority, Republicans will need near unanimity to pass the measures, though even if they do, the Democratic-majority Senate is all but certain to acquit Mayorkas.

REPUBLICAN SKEPTICISM At least two Republicans have said they will not support the measure. Representative Tom McClintock on Tuesday said the investigation into Mayorkas had failed to "identify an impeachable crime," and Representative Ken Buck made a similar statement on Monday.

House Republicans allege that Mayorkas was intentionally lax in securing the long border with Mexico and violated the public trust by making false statements to Congress. Around 2 million migrants were arrested by the U.S. Border Patrol at the U.S.-Mexico border in fiscal 2023.

Mayorkas has denied any wrongdoing and has defended his tenure. The only other time the House voted to impeach a cabinet member was in 1876, when a secretary of war was investigated for corruption. The Senate acquitted him.

Democrats have condemned the impeachment exercise as an effort to score political points against Biden and his administration in the run-up to the November election. "This farce of an impeachment is a distraction from other vital national security priorities and the work Congress should be doing to actually fix our broken immigration laws," a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said on Tuesday. "They don't want to fix the problem; they want to campaign on it."

Democrats and some legal experts have said the impeachment charges fall well short of evidence of "high crimes and misdemeanors" under the Constitution's impeachment requirement.