No impeachment proceedings against US Secretary Mayorkas

The US Republicans want to throw the Democratic Secretary of Homeland Security Mayorkas out of office. But a first attempt has now failed: there was a lack of support in the House of Representatives – even within its own ranks.

It is a serious defeat for the US Republicans: they have been announcing impeachment proceedings against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for months – now they have failed in their first attempt. In the House of Representatives, 216 members voted against impeachment and 214 for it. This means that some Republican MPs also voted against it, along with all Democrats.

The background is a dispute over the US government’s border and immigration policy. Republicans accuse Mayorkas, among other things, of refusing to enforce immigration laws through “gross incompetence” and of being partly responsible for the crisis at the US border with Mexico. The arrival of numerous migrants, especially from South and Central America, at the border between Mexico and the USA has been posing huge challenges for the US authorities for years.

The proposal would probably have no chance in the Senate

Democrats condemned the impeachment attempt as politically motivated. After the vote, a spokesman for the Republican leader of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, announced on X that he would resubmit the proposal as soon as the necessary majority was secured. It would be the first such trial against a minister in almost 150 years.

But even if the Republicans had prevailed in the House of Representatives, the Democrats would be the majority in the Senate, where the impeachment trial would take place. The two-thirds majority necessary for removal would never have been achieved in the upper house.

Immigration policy as an election campaign issue

Border protection and immigration policy are among the central issues of the presidential election campaign in the USA. Most recently, both parties argued over a legislative package that would expand border protection and at the same time release billions of dollars in new aid to Ukraine and new aid to Israel.

Senators from Democrats and Republicans worked out a corresponding proposal with a total volume of 118 billion dollars (around 110 billion euros), but the Republicans have since turned away from the plan.

Former President Donald Trump plays an important role in this. Trump wants to run again in the November election and has openly spoken out against the reform package. In doing so, he is putting pressure on his Republican parliamentarians to let it fail.