Saul Loeb / AFP
Immigration Minister Alejandro Mayorkas, here in November 2023, is a Republican target for the presidential election.
International – quite a symbol. Republicans in the US House of Representatives impeached President Joe Biden’s immigration minister Alejandro Mayorkas this Tuesday, January 13, accusing him of inciting the crisis on the border between the United States and Mexico.
This is the first time in nearly 150 years that the Congress has taken such a sanction against a minister. It passed 215 votes to 214, but dismissal remains largely unlikely given the Democratic majority in the Senate. Conservatives tried to impeach him a week earlier, but missed out by a handful of votes in a humiliating vote.
“He is the chief architect of disaster”The accusation was earlier made by the Republican leader of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, who decided the fate of the 64-year-old minister earlier in the evening.
an act “Policy”, Condemns Biden
Joe Biden quickly responded, denouncing, in a press release, “ A dastardly act of politics targeting an honorable servant of the state”.
“Instead of organizing charades like this, Republicans who actually care about the border should be asking Congress for more resources and stronger border security.”condemned the 81-year-old Democrat.
The chances that Alejandro Mayorkas will be removed from office at the end of this impeachment process are extremely slim, but the situation is still becoming a headache for Joe Biden less than nine months before the presidential election.
Immigration at the heart of the campaign
Republicans, most of whom are close to former President Donald Trump with his very anti-immigration rhetoric, have accused the Democratic president of letting the country stay. invade”For example the record number of migrants arrested at the border, 302,000 in December.
Democrats have sidelined the process, accusing Republicans of scapegoating the minister in the middle of an election year.
The last charge against a minister by the Congress was in… 1876. Secretary of War William Belknap, accused of corruption, resigned before the end of the impeachment process. The Constitution provides that Congress can impeach the president, ministers or federal judges. sedition, corruption or other high crimes and misdemeanors”.
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