WASHINGTON — The Republicans decided this Wednesday to continue the impeachment process against the Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, for the immigration crisis on the border with Mexico, a key issue in the presidential campaign in the United States.
In December, US authorities intercepted more than 10,000 migrants who illegally crossed the border from Mexico every day, in what Republicans consider a humanitarian disaster.
So much so that the conservatives have made the approval of an aid package for Ukraine subject to a tightening of the policy to stop migration.
At the moment, the White House has not reached an agreement with congressmen of both parties on these negotiations, focused on tightening the rules for asylum seekers and expanding expedited deportations, but both sides hope to have a proposal ready by next week. .
Emergency due to immigration crisis
For a political trial, or “impeachment” in English, an investigation needs to be carried out. The House of Representatives then debates it in one or several sessions and decides whether to vote, by simple majority, on the articles of impeachment with the details of the facts they criticize.
In this case, the investigation concluded in December and Mayorkas is accused of creating a national security emergency.
“Our investigation made it clear that the basis of this crisis is Secretary Mayorkas’s decision-making and his refusal to enforce the laws passed by Congress,” said House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green. it’s a statement.
Mayorkas would be the first Cabinet member to be impeached since Secretary of War William Belknap in 1876.
It requires a majority of the House of Representatives, in which Republicans have a very slim majority, to vote that he has committed “serious crimes and misdemeanors.”
Even in the case of a firm accusation, the Senate must rule and it is highly likely that Mayorkas would be acquitted because President Joe Biden’s Democratic Party has a majority in the Upper House of Congress.
The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, has tried to warm things up by taking about 60 congressmen to the border city of Eagle Pass, in Texas, this Wednesday to visit a border patrol facility and talk to locals.
Biden’s weak point
Still, the process will continue to be a headache in an election year for President Biden, whose popularity rating has fallen in recent months.
Only 38% of people surveyed by Harvard CAPS-Harris in December approve of their immigration management, compared to 46% the previous month.
On Tuesday, the border patrol reported intercepting migrants a record 309,000 times at the border in December.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) accuses Republicans of “wasting valuable time and taxpayer money” on a “political exercise.”
“There is no valid basis for impeaching Secretary Mayorkas (…) and this extreme push for impeachment is a harmful distraction from our critical national security priorities,” DHS spokeswoman Mia Ehrenberg said in a statement. release.
Election bill?
But the migration crisis can take its electoral toll and Biden knows it, which explains an unusual visit by his head of diplomacy, Antony Blinken, to Mexico the week of Christmas with the aim of stopping migration.
At the domestic level, problems are also piling up.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a hardline Republican, continues to defy Biden by sending thousands of migrants to Democratic-run northern cities.
The mayors of New York, Denver and Chicago have pressured the president to increase their allocation of federal resources because they say they have reached a critical point.
Source: With information from AFP
