A new thorn in Joe Biden’s side. Republican elected officials in the American Congress announced, Wednesday January 3, that they were launching impeachment proceedings against the Minister of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, whom they accuse of being responsible for the migration crisis on the border between the United States and the Mexico.
This announcement comes at a time when nearly 10,000 migrants cross the American border from Mexico every day, and the subject is politically hot a few months before the November presidential election.
Republicans are calling the situation a humanitarian disaster and accusing the Minister of Homeland Security of causing the situation. “Our investigation has clearly shown that this crisis stems from the minister’s decision-making and his refusal to enforce the laws passed by Congress,” Mark Green, chairman of the House’s Homeland Security Committee, said in a statement. House of Representatives. “His failure to uphold his oath demands accountability,” he added. A first hearing must take place on Wednesday January 10.
“Since President Biden has been in office, the government has done almost nothing to protect the border,” Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson said since then. “But we saw it with our own eyes, they opened the border to the whole world,” he said during a press conference in Texas, in front of the Rio Grande River, which demarcates the border with the Mexico.
Negotiations
Faced with these criticisms, the Department of Homeland Security accused the Republicans of “wasting precious time and taxpayers’ money” in a “political maneuver.”
For Alejandro Mayorkas to be removed from office, a majority of lawmakers in the House of Representatives must first vote on his impeachment before the Senate, which in turn must find a two-thirds majority to complete the process. A practically impossible scenario given that the Republicans only hold a very slim majority in the House of Representatives and the Senate has a Democratic majority.
The launch of this impeachment procedure nonetheless remains bad news for Joe Biden, while the authorities recorded in December 302,000 arrests of migrants who entered the United States illegally, without these necessarily leading to a expulsion.
The White House and parliamentarians from both camps are negotiating immigration reform, with Republicans conditioning their support for a new aid package for Ukraine on a tightening of migration measures.
From the border, Mike Johnson, for example, asked Joe Biden to reinstate a provision used by the Trump administration allowing asylum seekers to be refused entry until their hearing before a judge, with the Republican ensuring that this would reduce illegal entries by 70%. The Democratic mayors of New York, Denver and Chicago – large cities which see buses of migrants sent by the Republican governor of Texas – also put pressure on the Democratic president to act quickly.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott also signed a law last month allowing Texas law enforcement to arrest and expel migrants who illegally cross the border between Mexico and the United States, a prerogative normally reserved for the federal state. The federal Department of Justice in Washington announced Wednesday that it would file an appeal against Texas, arguing that this law was unconstitutional.