Washington – Rep. Brandon Williams voted Tuesday to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, joining House Republicans who argued that Mayorkas willfully refused to enforce the nation’s immigration laws.
The impeachment resolution failed to pass, with 216 House members (all Democrats and four Republicans) voting against it. A total of 214 Republicans voted for impeachment. The vote marked the first time in almost 150 years that Congress tried to impeach a sitting member of the president’s cabinet.
Williams, a first-term Republican from Central New York, had previously signaled his support to impeach Mayorkas, calling his tenure as the nation’s top homeland security official a failure.
Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-Cleveland, who represents part of Central New York, also voted for impeachment.
Before the vote, House Democrats said the impeachment effort amounted to a partisan attack on President Joe Biden’s immigration policies.
Some GOP House members opposed the measure, warning it would set a dangerous precedent and open the door for Democrats to impeach Republican cabinet members.
Republicans, who have a razor-thin majority in the House, could have afforded to lose no more than two votes to pass the impeachment resolution.
Even if the bill passed it was unlikely to make it out of the Democratic-controlled Senate.
Before Tuesday night’s vote, a group of three former homeland security secretaries who served under Democrats and Republicans called the impeachment effort “groundless.”
The group voiced their concerns in a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson, warning an impeachment threatens to undermine national security.
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