Biden homeland security chief survives impeachment vote

The US House of Representatives voted on Tuesday against impeaching Democratic President Joe Biden's top border official, Alejandro Mayorkas.

The call was expected to be tight, and so it proved, as three Republicans ultimately sided with Democrats in a vote that ended 216-214 in the Homeland Security Secretary's favor.

Mayorkas came under fire from Republican lawmakers who were keen for an impeachment of the Democrat over illegal entries across the United States' southern border.

Chaotic scene in the House 

Given the unified opposition from Democrats, the Republican majority was pressed to secure a nearly unanimous support to pass the impeachment vote.

Earlier, chaotic scenes erupted in the House as the vote was deadlocked at 215-215 for a while.

One of the chief sponsors of the impeachment vote, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, and other Republican lawmakers, surrounded Republican Mike Gallagher, who refused to alter his vote. 

One of the Republican holdouts, Tom McClintock, said the charges "fail to identify an impeachable crime that Mayorkas has committed."

"The failure of the Biden administration to rein in an open border is a national disgrace and will be a stain on his presidential legacy," Ken Buck, another Republican rebel, wrote in a recent op-ed. "However, the truth is that this is a policy disagreement masked as an impeachment."

Democrats call vote political stunt

An impeachment would have led to a Senate trial, but Mayorkas was expected to be acquitted by the Democrat-controlled chamber. 

The move by the Republicans, criticized as a political stunt by Democrats, highlights the deep policy disagreements over border security in election year.

Mia Ehrenberg, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security called the vote "baseless" and said if House Republicans are "serious about border security, they should abandon these political games." 

Incidentally, the impeachment vote happened at a time when Mayorkas has been negotiating a bipartisan border security package in the Senate, seen as one of the most ambitious immigration overhauls in years.

The legislation, which goes to vote in the Senate on Wednesday, is expected to fail amid Republican opposition. 

Immigration a major political issue

Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries labelled the Tuesday's vote a stunt to appease Trump and "chaos and confusion."

Former President and Republican presidential nominee frontrunner Donald Trump has made immigration a major political standpoint as he prepares for a likely rematch against President Joe Biden in November.

The topic is bound to remain a flashpoint as record numbers of people have been arriving at the southern US border, with December seeing an almost 10,000 apprehensions of illegal immigrants a day.

 

ss/jsi (AFP, AP, Reuters)