(NewsNation) — The House of Representatives is scheduled to vote Tuesday on impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
It might be a challenge to reach this goal, however — NewsNation local affiliate The Hill reports that GOP House members can only afford to lose three votes if there’s full attendance and unanimous Democratic opposition.
So far, two Republicans (Colorado Rep. Ken Buck and Rep. Tom McClintock of California) have said they will vote against Mayorkas’ impeachment, saying he should not be removed for carrying out the Biden administration’s migration and border policy. NewsNation’s Joe Khalil reports there are rumblings that there could be a third Republican who doesn’t vote for impeachment.
Still, House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, a Republican from Minnesota, said he’s “confident” the resolution will pass.
House Speaker Mike Johnson said he spoke privately with at least two Republican holdouts.
“It’s an extreme measure,” said Johnson, R-La. “But extreme times call for extreme measures.”
Republicans say Mayorkas is guilty of “high crimes and misdemeanors” that amount to a “willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law” on immigration and a “breach of the public trust.”
Sen. Mark Green, the GOP chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, said Tuesday that Mayorkas has “refused to comply with the job” so he no longer deserves to keep it.
Democrats, meanwhile, have said the impeachment proceedings are politically motivated at a waste of time.
In a Sunday statement, the Department of Homeland Security said the GOP doesn’t want to fix the problem at the border — “They want to campaign on it.”
“That’s why they have undermined efforts to achieve bipartisan solutions and ignored the facts, legal scholars and experts, and even the Constitution itself in their quest to baselessly impeach Secretary Mayorkas,” the statement said.
Mayorkas himself put out a scathing memo, responding to the GOP’s allegations for the first time and saying he’s going to continue to do his job. President Joe Biden, in a statement the day before the vote, said impeaching Mayorkas would trivialize the solemn constitutional power and invite more partisan abuse of this authority in the future.
Should the impeachment resolution pass, the Senate would hold a trial, with a two-thirds vote needed for conviction. This could be a challenge in the Democratic-run Senate, especially since members could refer the matter to a committee for its own investigation, delaying immediate action.
A Cabinet secretary has not faced impeachment charges since 1876. Secretary of War William Belknap ended up resigning just before the vote.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
This story is developing. Refresh for updates.
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