House GOP fails to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas

Rep. Steve Womack

House Republicans were exasperated after the stunning defeat of their resolution to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, lobbing some criticism at their own leadership over the fiasco even as they plan to bring the vote back up again when they have better attendance.

GOP Rep. Steve Womack of Arkansas said it was unwise of leadership to put the bill on the floor not knowing for sure whether it would pass, adding to the perception that House Republicans can’t govern.

Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina also criticized GOP leadership’s strategy on the Mayorkas vote.

“I would have thought they would have known that. I would have thought that would have been basic,” Norman said of the whip count. “They’re good on the other side of knowing that. Is it that hard?”

“But it did happen, it went down, and we live to fight another day,” he said.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene disputed that it was a miscalculation to put the bill on the floor, telling CNN, “I don’t think it’s a failure at all,” and warning that the Republicans who voted to sink the impeachment articles would be hearing from voters.

“I’m sure they’ll hear from their constituents. I’m sure they’re probably hearing from them already, but I think they should listen to them,” the Georgia Republican said.

“I look forward to having Steve Scalise back. Of course, been praying for him this whole time to beat cancer,” she added, referring to the House majority leader who was absent from the vote as he recovers in Louisiana from a stem cell transplant. 

The White House is calling Tuesday night’s failed vote to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas a “baseless, unconstitutional impeachment stunt.”

Sams also called the impeachment vote a “waste of time.”

“House Republicans ought to realize that extreme political stunts like this are a waste of time, and instead join the President, Secretary Mayorkas, and Republicans and Democrats who want to work together to deliver real solutions that actually strengthen border security,” Sams added. 

The surprise maneuver by House Democrats that sunk the Alejandro Mayorkas impeachment vote came at the last minute.

Democratic Rep. Al Green of Texas, who has been absent recovering from surgery, was expected to miss the vote, which would have given House Republicans the margins they needed to impeach the Homeland Security secretary.

But, sources said, Green was wheeled onto the House floor at the last minute with no shoes, to vote against impeaching Mayorkas and deliver a stunning defeat to Republicans.

Leading up to the vote, Republicans believed that Green’s absence would give them the cushion they needed if a few GOP lawmakers defected and felt confident they would be able to squeak the vote through up until the last minute.

Up until Green’s vote changed the margins and tipped the vote over the edge against Republicans, the plan to bring him back was in flux, a source familiar with the plans told CNN.

Even Republicans acknowledged that Democrats’ decision to wait to reveal Green’s presence was well-played.

“I like a good game. They played a good game. I don’t like that we lost” GOP Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona told CNN.

Green’s return may have caught Republicans by surprise – but Democratic leaders said they were ready for it.

“It was not a surprise,” House Minority Whip Katherine Clark told CNN of Green’s return.

Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi said Green “had been out, but he saw the importance of coming and he did.”

Green was not the only lawmaker rushing back to the Capitol for the crucial vote.

Rep. Hal Rogers, a Kentucky Republican who has been recovering from a car accident, appeared on the House floor in a large neck brace, and GOP Rep. Nick Langworthy of New York returned just in time to vote after leaving the Capitol for an emergency. 

 “It was all hands on deck,” Thompson reflected.

After facing a stunning defeat on the House floor, GOP leadership is signaling they will try again to impeach Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas once they have the votes secured. 

Despite rumors swirling that House Majority Leader Steve Scalise – who would be a key vote – could be back tomorrow, his office denies that. 

The vote could potentially be brought up as soon as next week. 

The Department of Homeland Security issued a statement Tuesday saying Republicans should abandon “political games” following the failed effort to impeach DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Tuesday.

Some context: Legal experts, including Alan Dershowitz, who represented former President Donald Trump in his first impeachment trial, have said Republicans lack evidence to impeach Mayorkas. Former DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff, who served under Republican President George W. Bush, constitutional law expert Jonathan Turley, who has been called by Republicans to serve as a witness in hearings, and 25 law professors have all written about why Republicans have not presented evidence against Mayorkas that rises to the level of impeachment.

Rep. Ken Buck.

Republican Rep. Ken Buck said the “principle is very clear” for why he joined Democrats in voting against the resolution to impeach Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas: The secretary did not commit a high crime or misdemeanor.

But, the Colorado lawmaker said the resolution is likely to pass at some point when House Majority Leader Steve Scalise is back on the Hill. He was not present for the vote on Tuesday because he is still recovering in Louisiana from a stem cell transplant.

Republicans could only lose three votes in their razor-thin majority if all lawmakers are present. With Buck, Republican Reps. Mike Gallagher and Tom McClintock also voted against the resolution.

Buck said he is disappointed that there is still a way forward “because we are setting new levels — low levels for these impeachments,” Buck said.

“It is not the way we should be going when we need to solve the difficult problems that we have in this country,” he added.

House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green attends a Rules Committee hearing at the US Capitol on February 5, in Washington, DC.

Homeland Security Chair Mark Green said he is “frustrated” that House Republicans failed to impeach DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, but said Republicans will vote again when Majority Leader Steve Scalise is back and pass it.

Scalise was absent from the vote as he recovers in Louisiana from a stem cell transplant. 

Green presides over the Homeland Security Committee that sent the impeachment articles against Mayorkas to the House floor. He had personally met with some of the GOP holdouts on the impeachment, such as Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado, and issued a number of memos on Mayorkas in recent weeks, GOP sources previously told CNN.

Rep. Ken Buck speaks to members of the media after a meeting at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on Tuesday, Oct. 10, 2023. 

Three Republicans — Colorado Rep. Ken Buck, Wisconsin Rep. Mike Gallagher and California Rep. Tom McClintock — joined the Democrats in voting against the resolution to impeach Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

GOP Rep. Blake Moore joined the no side to allow House Republicans to bring up the vote again.

The House GOP also has three vacancies after the departures of Kevin McCarthy and Bill Johnson, and the expulsion of George Santos.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise was not present for the vote, as he is still recovering in Louisiana from a stem cell transplant. 

The House’s failure to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is a “massive defeat for the leadership of the GOP,” former Illinois Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on “The Situation Room.” 

House Speaker Mike Johnson told CNN earlier Tuesday that he believed House Republicans had enough votes to impeach, but several Republican lawmakers voted against the resolution. 

Tuesday’s failed vote also casts doubt on whether a potential effort to impeach President Joe Biden will succeed, Kinzinger, a CNN senior political commentator, argued.  

If the effort had been successful, Mayorkas would have been the first Cabinet secretary to be impeached in nearly 150 years.

The House, with the slimmest margin of 214-216, failed to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. It’s a colossal embarrassment for Republican leaders, who pushed the issue for political reasons despite legal scholars disputing the GOP case.

The vote comes after a spate of vacancies largely on the Republican side that made the margins for House Speaker Mike Johnson incredibly tight. 

Three Republicans, Colorado Rep. Ken Buck, Wisconsin Rep. Mike Gallagher, and California Rep. Tom McClintock, joined the Democrats in voting against the resolution. GOP Rep. Blake Moore of Utah joined the no side to allow the House GOP to bring up the vote again.

House Republicans also have three vacancies after the departures of Kevin McCarthy and Bill Johnson, and the expulsion of George Santos.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise was not present for the vote, as he is still recovering in Louisiana from a stem cell transplant. 

Here is a breakdown of the vote:

 Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas testifies during a House Homeland Security Committee hearing on Capitol Hill on November 15, 2023 in Washington, DC.

The GOP-led House is voting now on whether to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

Republicans can only lose three votes in their razor-thin majority if all lawmakers are present, and a handful of lawmakers have not indicated how they plan to vote.

House Republicans claim Mayorkas has committed high crimes and misdemeanors for his handling of the southern border, even though several constitutional experts have said the evidence does not reach that high bar.

Only one Cabinet official has previously been impeached in American history: Secretary of War William Belknap in 1876.

Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas takes his seat to testify before a Senate Appropriations Homeland Security Subcommittee hearing on the department's budget request on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, in 2021.

If House Republicans can muster the simple majority of votes they need to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, it will be an unprecedented moment in US history.

While there was one previous Cabinet official to be impeached by the House, the circumstances of that scandal, featuring Secretary of War William Belknap in 1876, are so different as to defy comparison, except in one way: Belknap was acquitted by the Senate as Mayorkas almost certainly would be.

The most important difference between Belknap and Mayorkas is the purpose of their respective impeachment cases.

As everyone should remember from the two impeachments and Senate acquittals of former President Donald Trump, the Constitution’s impeachment clause allows for the removal of a federal official from office and bars that individual from office in the future for “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

Belknap served during the so-called Gilded Age of US politics, and his crime was the corrupt financing of an extravagant lifestyle in the nation’s capital. He took kickbacks from a person he appointed to lead a trading post in Oklahoma.

The articles of impeachment against Mayorkas, on the other hand, outline policy differences rather than corruption, bribery or another crime. Republicans disagree with the administration’s approach at the border and argue that Mayorkas is not enforcing the laws.

Read more about what could be a historic vote.

The House is set to vote soon on whether to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, where lawmakers could take the rare step of impeaching a Cabinet official for the first time in nearly 150 years. Only one Cabinet official has previously been impeached in American history: Secretary of War William Belknap in 1876.

Here are key things to know about the upcoming vote:

What Republicans are saying: House Republicans claim Mayorkas has committed high crimes and misdemeanors for his handling of the southern border, even though several constitutional experts have said the evidence does not reach that high bar. The impeachment effort comes as House Republicans have faced building pressure from their base to hold the Biden administration accountable on a key campaign issue: the border.

Tight margin: But Republicans can only lose three votes in their razor-thin majority if all lawmakers are present, and a handful of lawmakers have not indicated how they plan to vote. GOP Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado announced in an op-ed that he would not vote to impeach Mayorkas. GOP Rep. Tom McClintock of California wrote on X on Tuesday he also will vote against impeaching the DHS secretary. House Homeland Security Chairman Mark Green of Tennessee, who has led the impeachment effort, has been meeting with some of the remaining GOP holdouts in the lead up to the vote, according to GOP sources.

What happens after the vote: Even if Mayorkas is impeached in the House, it is highly unlikely that he will be charged in the Democratic-controlled Senate. Senate Democrats are still weighing how to respond if Mayorkas is impeached: Move ahead with a trial, or move to dismiss it quickly given their view that it’s blatantly political.

What Mayorkas is saying: Mayorkas – whom the department said is meeting with staff in Mountain View, California, on Tuesday, to discuss cybersecurity and artificial intelligence – sent a letter to House Republicans to defend his record in public service. “My reverence for law enforcement was instilled in me by my parents, who brought me to this country to escape the Communist takeover of Cuba and allow me the freedoms and opportunity that our democracy provides,” Mayorkas said. The Department of Homeland Security has also blasted House Republicans over its upcoming committee vote, calling it a “farce” and “distraction from other vital national security priorities.”

The Senate is considering a border deal: While Republicans in the House argue that the remedy for fixing the crisis at the southern border is to impeach Mayorkas and pressure President Joe Biden to take more executive action, their counterparts in the Senate have worked with their Democratic colleagues to unveil a border deal that would make long-anticipated changes to immigration law. But House Speaker Mike Johnson declared the Senate deal “dead on arrival” in the House after the text was released Sunday evening.

Read more about the upcoming vote here.

Former President Donald Trump’s campaign on Tuesday bashed President Joe Biden’s remarks from the White House earlier in the day that urged Congress to pass the Senate’s bipartisan border deal as Trump continued trying to sink the bill. 

Biden on Tuesday explicitly cast blame on Trump for derailing the painstakingly negotiated border and national security package, which is expected to fail in the Senate, saying in part that Trump is blocking the bill for the sole reason that it would give him a political win. Biden also warned that he and his allies will blame Trump and Republicans “every day” should the bill fail.

Leavitt added, “Predictably, Crooked Joe Biden blamed President Trump for the border crisis that Biden himself created. This is a brazen, pathetic lie and the American people know the truth – President Trump’s policies created the most secure border in American history, and it was Joe Biden who reversed them, causing death, destruction, and chaos in every American community. America does not need a ‘border’ bill that does nothing to deter illegal immigration. We need a President who will use his executive authority to shut the border down. Joe Biden clearly refuses to do that, but President Trump will get it done on day one.” 

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema speaks to reporters at the Capitol on February 5, in Washington, DC. 

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, one of the key Senate negotiators on the immigration and foreign aid package, said on Tuesday she is “disappointed” that her colleagues have rejected the legislation for political reasons.

“It appears that politics have overtaken practical policy once again in Washington, DC,” the independent from Arizona told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “The Lead.”

The $118 billion bipartisan border deal and foreign aid package is set for a key vote in the Senate on Wednesday but the bill is on track to fail as GOP infighting threatens to steamroll any congressional response to the border as well as jeopardize aid to Ukraine and Israel. 

“For the last four and a half months I brought Republicans and Democrats together to form a real solution to address our border crisis, and unfortunately today, my colleagues in the United States Senate have decided that they don’t actually want the solution and don’t want to secure the border. And I’m disappointed – but I’m mostly disappointed, Jake, for the folks back home, because my state is still in crisis and will be tomorrow and the next day and the next day,” she continued.

Sinema refused to place blame specifically at the feet of former President Donald Trump, who has sought to tank the deal in recent days, arguing that “each senator has to take responsibility for his or her own decisions.” But she argued that members were rejecting the bill due to politics, rather than the package’s provisions.  

She confirmed the Senate will take a procedural vote on the package, and noted that she told Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer that they should give Republicans another day to read the package: “He agreed, but unfortunately today Senate Republicans indicated that a delay isn’t needed, that they don’t want to move forward on this bill.”

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday that President Joe Biden and House Speaker Mike Johnson aren’t going to be getting together to talk about the border deal any time soon.

When Jean-Pierre was questioned about Johnson’s role in the border bill negotiations, she said there was no need to engage in further negotiation with the speaker.

When asked whether Biden would invite Johnson over to the White House to hash out a deal, Jean-Pierre said, “Hash out what? The agreement is in front of them.”

Johnson came out in open opposition to the bill, essentially dooming the bipartisan border deal reached among senators that would have ramped up border security while also sending funding to Ukraine and Israel.

“They’re putting politics ahead of getting things done for the American people,” Jean-Pierre said. 

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer speaks at a news conference at the US Capitol on February 6, in Washington, DC. 

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and top Senate Democrats on Tuesday expressed intense anger at Republicans for abandoning the bipartisan border deal after demanding that border security be packaged together with Ukraine aid, accusing them of bowing to pressure from Donald Trump.

The New York Democrat accused GOP leader Mitch McConnell and the GOP conference of “a 180-degree reversal” and of “quaking at the knees at the fear of Donald Trump.”

“In our caucus room today, there was a lot of anger, frustration, deep disappointment in our Republican colleagues,” he added.

Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, the top Democratic negotiator for the deal, blasted Republicans. “I know that it’s easy to lose your sense of outrage about politics,” he said, “but what has happened here over the last four months is outrageous,” adding that Republicans ”now oppose the very bill that they begged us to craft.” 

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, a New Hampshire Democrat, spoke about deaths from fentanyl overdoses in her state, saying, “anything that we can do to cut down on the amount of fentanyl that’s coming into the United States we ought to be doing, by God. If they’re not willing to do that, then shame on them.”

Asked whether the Senate would drop the border provisions and move to pass a package with only the foreign aid if Wednesday’s vote on the package fails as is expected, Schumer said, “Stay tuned.”

Asked if he has a plan for what will happen in the Senate if DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is impeached by the Republican-led House on Tuesday night, Schumer would not specify or say if he would move to dismiss.

“Let’s see what the House first does,” he said.

The Biden campaign is seizing on former President Donald Trump’s push to sink the border bill package introduced by the Senate earlier this week, listing the instances when Trump called for immigration reform.

“Donald Trump has directed MAGA Republicans to kill the toughest and fairest reforms to secure the border in decades because he thinks it will help him politically,” the Biden campaign said in an email blast. 

The email came moments after President Joe Biden said Democrats will remind voters “every day between now and November” that “the only reason the border is not secure is Trump” in a White House speech, previewing how he will use the issue to run against the likely GOP presidential candidate Trump in the general election.

“This bill has picked up support across the political spectrum - including Trump’s allies like the Border Patrol Union, who endorsed Trump’s campaign for president twice – and the Chamber of Commerce,” the email continued.  

Trump’s attacks on the bill – and those from House Speaker Mike Johnson, who has said the bill would be “dead on arrival” in the House – have made the bill’s failure all but inevitable. Biden has said that Trump is blocking the bill for the sole reason that it would give him a political win. 

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell speaks to reporters at the US Capitol on Tuesday.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters that the immigration and foreign aid package “will not become law,” due to the Speaker Mike Johnson’s opposition and concerns within the Senate GOP conference.

“We had a very robust discussion about whether or not this product could ever become law, and it’s been made pretty clear to us by the speaker that it will not become law,” he said. 

“So I want to congratulate Sen. (James) Lankford on a remarkable job of negotiating with the other side, getting the support of the border council, but it looks to me and to most of our members is that we have no real chance here to make a law,” McConnell continued.

McConnell argued that the Senate needs to change course on the national security package and focus on providing foreign aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.

“There are other parts of this supplemental that are extremely important as well: Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan. We still, in my view, ought to tackle the rest of it, because it’s important. Not that the border isn’t important, but we can’t get an outcome,” McConnell told CNN’s Manu Raju. “So that’s where I think we ought to head, and it’s up to Sen. Schumer to decide how to repackage this if in fact we don’t go on to it.”

The Republican leader also defended his handling of the negotiations, saying that he accomplished what members of his conference wanted by proposing serious changes to immigration law, tied to foreign aid.

“I followed the instructions of my conference who were insisting that we tackle this in October. I mean, it’s actually our side that wanted to tackle the border issue. We started it,” he said. “Obviously, with a Democratic President and a Democratic Senate, our negotiators had to deal with them, and James Lankford, under those situations, did a remarkable job.”

Pressed on whether Trump’s opposition is to blame for killing the package, McConnell refused to engage.

“I’ve said repeatedly every month, I’m not going to get into comments about the race for the presidency among Republicans,” he said.

Migrants in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, walk next to the US-Mexico border wall on Thursday.

Just about everyone agrees that whatever US immigration system is supposed to exist at the southern border — and beyond it — is badly broken.

The number of unauthorized immigrants crossing the border keeps reaching record highs. The backlog of cases in US immigration courts has soared past 3 million. People trying to immigrate legally to the US face a maze of bureaucracy and lengthy delays.

A group of bipartisan senators and White House officials say they’ve negotiated a deal that would solve some of these problems. If passed, the measures would amount to some of the most significant changes in US immigration policy in decades.

That’s certainly a big if. While President Joe Biden has said he’ll sign the legislation, former President Donald Trump is pushing GOP lawmakers not to pass it. And House Republican leaders have called it “dead on arrival” even if it clears the Senate.

Still, this is a moment when it’s important to pay attention.

At a time when problems at the border often grab headlines, this deal — released Sunday evening after months of negotiations — offers a rare list of proposed solutions with a bipartisan bent, including:

Read more about what is, and isn’t, in the deal here.