More than two months have passed since the House voted by a razor-thin margin to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who Republicans accuse of failing to enforce US border laws and lying to Congress amid record-setting levels of illegal immigration.
Top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer is expected to quickly bring an end to the matter, which Democrats say is a politically motivated misuse of the impeachment process, though doing so will draw protests from Republican lawmakers.
Some lawmakers also argue the matter is a poor use of time as Congress confronts global worries including the risk of the Israel-Gaza war possibly turning into a regional conflict and Russia gaining ground in its war against Ukraine.
Mayorkas, a former federal prosecutor, denies the House charges, Biden is standing behind him, and even some Republicans have said they see no illegal activities to back up the House allegations.
While many Republicans accuse Mayorkas of creating a “crisis” they say jeopardises national security due to record numbers of migrants arriving at the southern US border with Mexico, the House has been in no rush to actually deliver its impeachment papers to the Senate.
Biden’s election rival, Republican former president Donald Trump, has made immigration a key focus of his campaign and earlier this year helped torpedo a bipartisan Senate border bill that would have toughened enforcement.
On Friday, he put forth a legislative proposal trying to link conditions at the border to his long-standing false claim that his 2020 defeat to Biden was the result of fraud.
“Impeachment should never be used to settle a policy disagreement,” Schumer said in a speech yesterday. “That would set a horrible precedent for the Congress.”
The Senate will “address this issue as expeditiously as possible,” Schumer added.
With some Senate Republicans fuming over Schumer’s anticipated move for a dismissal of the case without a trial, they have been staging procedural hurdles against even routine actions that keep the chamber operating efficiently.
Last Thursday, for only the seventh time in 35 years, they insisted on a time-consuming roll-call vote to merely allow the Senate to recess for a long weekend.
Republican Senator John Cornyn said yesterday that talk circulating in the Senate of dismissing the case was “alarming.”
“Republicans will use every tool available to us to try to force a full trial,” he warned.
Mayorkas is only the second presidential Cabinet official facing the sack as a result of impeachment. The last time was in 1876.