Washington: The Republican-controlled House has failed to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over the Biden administration’s handling of the U.S.-Mexico border.
The vote Tuesday night marked the culmination of months of examination by House Republicans as they’ve aimed to make immigration and border security a key election issue.
But when it came down to the vote, Democrats were united against the charges, and Republicans, who have a razor-thin majority in the House, needed almost every vote they had to approve the two articles of impeachment against Mayorkas. They fell short.
This doesn’t necessarily spell the end of the impeachment efforts. The House is likely to revisit the issue, but next steps are highly uncertain.
Migrants have long come across the southern U.S. border looking for a new life in the United States, but not like what’s happening now. Arrests for illegal border crossings from Mexico reached an all-time high in December. In fiscal year 2022, Border Patrol encountered 2.2 million people crossing the border illegally. You have to go back decades to see comparable numbers.
The numbers have at times overwhelmed the ability of border officials to handle, leading to temporary closures of border crossings so that officials can process migrants.
It’s also had repercussions far from the border. Migrants going to cities like Chicago, New York, Boston and Denver have strained city services, leading to Democratic officials pushing the administration to take action.
