House impeaches Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas

While House Republicans only just succeeded Tuesday in their effort to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, they have been investigating his handling of the border since they reclaimed the House majority in 2022.

Momentum to plot a swift impeachment of Mayorkas picked up steam last month as key swing-district Republicans expressed openness to the idea amid a recent surge of migrant crossings at the southern border.

Border authorities encountered more than 225,000 migrants along the US-Mexico border in December, marking the highest monthly total recorded since 2000, according to preliminary Homeland Security statistics shared with CNN. And in fiscal year 2022, according to the Department of Homeland Security, 1.4 million individuals who were encountered at the border were removed, which is more than in any previous year.

The border crisis has galvanized Republicans, unifying their party for more aggressive action on an issue central to the 2024 campaign, and a handful of the eight Republicans who voted with Democrats to scuttle an effort to impeach Mayorkas in November 2023 recently signaled they’d back impeaching him if it went through the committee process, which happened late last month.

Moderate Republicans, including ones in districts that President Joe Biden carried in 2020, also signaled more willingness to impeach Mayorkas than the president – a sign of the shifting political terrain on the issue.

While House Republicans have sought to use Mayorkas' impeachment to address their issues with Biden's handling of the border, the GOP also helped to tank – along with Donald Trump – a major bipartisan border deal and foreign aid package that would have marked a tough change to immigration law championed by one of the Senate's most conservative members. House Speaker Mike Johnson said the bill would be dead on arrival in his chamber, even if it ever made it out of the Senate.

Mayorkas wrote in a letter in advance of the vote that “the problems with our broken and outdated immigration system are not new” and called on Congress to help provide a legislative solution to the “historically divisive issue.”

CNN's Melanie Zanona, Manu Raju and Annie Grayer contributed to this report.

The Senate is unlikely to spend much time on the impeachment trial of Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, sources in the chamber told CNN.

It remains to be seen how Democrats plan to deal with the charges procedurally, but they could dismiss them on a simple majority vote before each side argues its case.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s office said in a statement that House impeachment managers "will present the articles of impeachment to the Senate following the state work period. Senators will be sworn in as jurors in the trial the next day. Senate President Pro Tempore Patty Murray will preside.”

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, who returned to the US Capitol today for the first time since undergoing his stem cell transplant as he battles multiple myeloma, told reporters that the Senate should take the House’s impeachment of Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas “seriously.”

“The Senate really ought to take seriously the message that was sent, is that we're serious about securing the border and the Secretary has failed to do his job, and the American people are disgusted by it,” said Scalise.

It is unclear if the Senate will hold a trial or even consider the impeachment of Mayorkas when they return from their recess. Asked when the House would send over the articles, Scalise said they “want to do it quickly.”

Last week, when the House GOP’s first attempt to impeach Mayorkas failed, Scalise was the only member absent. His recovery and return to Washington, DC, gave them the margin they needed to impeach the secretary tonight.

What Senate leaders are saying: Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called the impeachment of Mayorkas “a new low for House Republicans,” arguing in a statement, “the one and only reason for this impeachment is for Speaker Johnson to further appease Donald Trump.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson said Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas needed to be impeached because he refused to do his job.

"From his first day in office, Secretary Mayorkas has willfully and consistently refused to comply with federal immigration laws, fueling the worst border catastrophe in American history," Johnson said in a statement after the impeachment vote Tuesday.

Johnson accused Mayorkas of undermining the public's trust "through multiple false statements to Congress." He also said the homeland security secretary "obstructed lawful oversight of the Department of Homeland Security, and violated his oath of office."

Constitutional experts have said the evidence does not reach that high bar of impeachment and three Republicans voted with Democrats against the resolution.

It is unlikely Mayorkas will be charged in the Democratic-controlled Senate, and the chamber's Democrats are still weighing how to respond to the impeachment.

A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security defended the secretary and said that House Republicans will be "remembered by history for trampling on the Constitution for political gain rather than working to solve the serious challenges at our border.”

The GOP-led House voted to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Tuesday evening after the resolution failed last week.

Spokesperson Mia Ehrenberg said in a statement that Mayorkas will continue working "to keep Americans safe."

“Without a shred of evidence or legitimate Constitutional grounds, and despite bipartisan opposition, House Republicans have falsely smeared a dedicated public servant who has spent more than 20 years enforcing our laws and serving our country," Ehrenberg said.

President Joe Biden slammed the vote by Republican lawmakers to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

The vote was a "blatant act of unconstitutional partisanship" and he called on Congress to pass legislation to address the situation at the border.

"This impeachment already failed once on a bipartisan vote. Instead of staging political stunts like this, Republicans with genuine concerns about the border should want Congress to deliver more border resources and stronger border security," the president said in a statement Tuesday evening.

Republican Rep. Ken Buck voted against the impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas last week — and did so again tonight.

Buck said he did not reconsider his vote because he does not believe that the circumstance qualifies as a high crime and misdemeanor.

Buck reiterated that impeachments need to be “broadly bipartisan” and criticized House Speaker Mike Johnson speaker for bringing it to the floor anyway, twice. He said moves like impeaching Mayorkas are going to cause Republicans to "further lose our credibility with the American public."

"What happens when a leadership caters to the unserious, the serious leave and that's a huge problem in this place," Buck said.

Along with Buck, Republican Reps. Mike Gallagher and Tom McClintock also voted against the measure.

Now that the GOP-controlled House has passed a resolution to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, the next steps will be determined by the Democratic-controlled Senate.

The Senate can generally make its own rules on how to deal with impeachment trials, including simply voting to dismiss it altogether, since the Democrats currently control the chamber 51-49, CNN's Manu Raju told CNN's Erin Burnett.

"There's an expectation that all Democrats will vote to dismiss this, end this completely. (The impeachment is) something that Democrats call a charade, a farce and a hoax," he said.

Mayorkas is the first Cabinet secretary to be impeached in nearly 150 years. The vote tally was 214 to 213 with three Republicans siding with Democrats. 

The House has voted to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas by a vote of 214 to 213. 

These three Republicans voted with Democrats against the measure:

• Ken Buck of Colorado
• Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin
• Tom McClintock of California