Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas speaks through the U.S. Conference of Mayors’ Winter Meeting in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 18, 2024.(AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
Jose Luis Magana/AP
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Jose Luis Magana/AP
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas speaks through the U.S. Conference of Mayors’ Winter Meeting in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 18, 2024.(AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
Jose Luis Magana/AP
House Republicans will ship two articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Sec. Alejandro Mayorkas to the Senate on April 10, Speaker Mike Johnson introduced Thursday.
Johnson and the Republican House members assigned to prosecute the impeachment shared the replace in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. They urged Schumer to “schedule a trial on the matter expeditiously.”
Schumer and his workers have promised to begin the method of swearing senators in as jurors the day after the articles are obtained within the chamber. Washington Senator Patty Murray, the Senate President Pro Tempore, will preside over the trial.
The House passed the two articles of impeachment by one vote in February — with solely Republican help — making Mayorkas the primary cupboard member to be impeached since William Belknap, secretary of warfare underneath President Ulysses S. Grant, in 1876. Three Republicans voted with all Democrats against the impeachment.
But the proceedings stalled as lawmakers negotiated must-pass spending payments and labored to avert a authorities shutdown. Lawmakers selected to pause the impeachment course of as a result of Senate guidelines require all different enterprise to be suspended whereas impeachment is prosecuted on the Senate ground.
The articles accuse Mayorkas of “willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law” in implementing border coverage and “breach public trust.” After their passage, Schumer referred to as the impeachment effort against Mayorkas a “sham,” and mentioned in assertion that Republicans have failed to display that the secretary has dedicated any impeachable offenses.
The Democratically-controlled Senate is extensively anticipated to acquit or in any other case sidestep the costs and permit Mayorkas to stay in his function. Some Republicans within the higher chamber have additionally expressed doubts that Mayorkas’ actions rise to the “high crimes and misdemeanors” customary set by the Constitution for impeachments.
NPR’s Eric McDaniel contributed to this report.
