[ad_1]
While House Republicans barely succeeded in their bid to oust Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Tuesday, they have been investigating his handling of the border since regaining the House majority in 2022.
The push to plan a quick impeachment trial against Mayorkas gained momentum last month when key Republicans in swing districts expressed openness to the idea amid a recent increase in migrant crossings at the southern border.
Border authorities encountered more than 225,000 migrants along the US-Mexico border in December, marking the highest monthly total recorded since 2000, according to preliminary Homeland Security statistics shared with CNN. And in fiscal year 2022, according to the Department of Homeland Security, 1.4 million people who were found at the border were eliminated, more than in any previous year.
The border crisis has galvanized republicansunifying their party for more aggressive action on a central issue for the 2024 campaign, and a handful of the eight Republicans who voted with Democrats to thwart an attempt to recall Mayorkas in November 2023 recently signaled they would support the impeachment process. dismissal if carried out. the committee process, which It happened at the end of last month..
Moderate Republicans, including those in districts President Joe Biden won in 2020, also showed more willingness to impeach Mayorkas than the president, a sign of the shifting political terrain on the issue.
While House Republicans have tried to use Mayorkas’ impeachment to address their issues with Biden’s handling of the border, the GOP also helped tank – along with Donald Trump – a Major bipartisan border deal and foreign aid package That would have marked a harsh change to the immigration law championed by one of the most conservative members of the Senate. House Speaker Mike Johnson said the bill would be dead upon reaching his chamber, even if he ever left the Senate.
Mayorkas wrote in a letter before the vote that “the problems with our broken and outdated immigration system are not new” and called on Congress to help provide a legislative solution to the “historically divisive issue.”
cnn Melanie Zanona, Manu Raju and Annie Grayer contributed to this report.
[ad_2]
Source link