US politics: Alejandro Mayorkas first cabinet member to face impeachment in nearly 150 years after House of Representatives vote over Mexico row

A sitting Cabinet secretary has never been impeached in US history

US homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has become the first cabinet member to face impeachment in nearly 150 years after the Republican House of Representatives blamed him for an increase in migrants at the Mexican border.

President Joe Biden criticised “petty political games” after Mr Mayorkas was impeached by the House of Representatives in a narrow 214-213 vote. However, it seems likely that it will not be passed in the Senate.

The Republican majority, who secured a single-vote win after leader Steve Scalise returned from cancer treatment, is determined to punish Mr Biden’s administration over its handling of the Mexico border.

US Department of Homeland Security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas faces impeachment after a House of Representatives vote. Picture: Getty Images

Mr Biden said: “History will not look kindly on House Republicans for their blatant act of unconstitutional partisanship that has targeted an honourable public servant in order to play petty political games.”

Mr Mayorkas faced two articles of impeachment filed by the Homeland Security Committee, arguing he “wilfully and systematically” refused to enforce existing immigration laws and that he breached the public trust by lying to Congress and saying the border was secure.

Unlike other impeachment attempts against politicians in the past, this one did not specify a specific offence and instead was more general, focusing on Republicans’ disapproval of the migration system.

Critics of the impeachment effort said the charges against Mr Mayorkas amount to a policy dispute over Mr Biden’s border policy and did not reach the level of “high crimes and misdemeanours”, the standard for impeachment laid out in the Constitution.

The House had initially launched an impeachment inquiry into the president over his son’s business dealings, but turned its attention to Mr Mayorkas after former president Donald Trump’s ally Marjorie Taylor Greene pushed the debate forward following the panel’s months-long investigation.

The charges against Mr Mayorkas would next go to the Senate for a trial. But neither Democratic nor Republican senators have shown interest in the matter and it may be indefinitely shelved to a committee.

Border security has shot to the top of campaign issues with Mr Trump, the Republican front-runner for the presidential nomination, insisting he will launch “the largest domestic deportation operation in American history” if he retakes the White House.

Various House Republicans have prepared legislation to begin deporting migrants who were temporarily allowed into the US under Mr Biden administration’s policies, many as they await adjudication of asylum claims.

“We have no choice,” Mr Trump said in stark language at a weekend rally in South Carolina.

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson rejected a bipartisan Senate border security package, but has been unable to advance Republicans’ own proposal, which is a non-starter in the Senate.

House Republicans have filed legislation to impeach a long list, including vice-president Kamala Harris, attorney general Merrick Garland, FBI director Christopher Wray and defence secretary Lloyd Austin.

Never before has a sitting Cabinet secretary been impeached and it was nearly 150 years ago the House voted to impeach president Ulysses S Grant’s secretary of war William Belknap over a kickback scheme in government contracts. He resigned before the vote.