Earlier, on a 216-215 house vote, Republicans failed to impeach the Secretary of Department of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas over accusations of committing high crimes and misdemeanors relating to the US-Mexico border and illegal border crossing by immigrants. Multiple constitutional experts said the evidence against Mayorkas does not constitute an impeachment. However, on February 13, the House GOP successfully impeached Alejandro Mayorkas on a second try by a 216-215 house vote in favor of the republicans. 

According to the White House.gov, “Mayorkas was a Cuban immigrant who came to the US with his family as political refugees, and has spent more than two decades serving America with integrity in a decorated career in law enforcement and public service.” Mayorkas served as the deputy secretary of Homeland Security from 2013-2016 under the Obama Administration. Under the Biden administration in 2021, he became secretary of Homeland Security. Mayorkas is the first cabinet secretary to be impeached in the past 150 years, in other words, since the Reconstruction era.

In the investigative phase, Homeland Security republicans conducted ten hearings, 11 transcribed interviews, and five interim reports with present and former border officials. In voting, only six out of the 216 House Republicans voted against Alejandro Mayorkas. Because the GOP had only heard two of the ten hearings, they ultimately decided to move on with the impeachment process.

Even though Alejandro Mayorkas is impeached, he is charged with mishandling illegal border crossings from Mexicans in the US-Mexico border. He is still the secretary of Homeland Security, but this will have a lot of talking points by analysts around.