In what Rep. Scott Peters called “all show and no substance,” the House of Representatives voted 214-213 to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over immigration policy.
“House Republicans would rather impeach the cabinet secretary who’s trying to fix the problems at the border than enact a real solution. They’re all show and no substance,” said Peters after the vote.
Peters and the three other Democrats in the San Diego congressional delegation — Sara Jacobs, Mike Levin and Juan Vargas — voted against impeachment. Republican Darrell Issa voted for it, saying earlier that he considered Mayorkas “guilty as alleged.”
The impeachment came a week after a similar vote failed in a legislative defeat for Speaker Mike Johnson. Republican Rep. Steve Scalise, who had been receiving treatment for cancer, was not present for last week’s vote, but returned to Washington this week, providing the crucial extra vote.
But it is highly unlikely that the Democratic-majority Senate will convict and oust Mayorkas.
The secretary has said he does not bear responsibility for the border situation, blaming it instead on a broken U.S. immigration system that Congress has not been able to fix.
Constitutional experts and even some Republicans and have said the House investigation of Mayorkas failed to provide evidence of the “high crimes and misdemeanors” that the Constitution cites as reasons for impeachment. Instead, they cast the fight as merely “policy disputes.”
And last week hardline Republicans in the Senate, egged on by Donald Trump, defeated a bipartisan deal to address border security that would have been the most sweeping policy change in decades.
Reuters contributed to this article.