Washington, DC — This week, House Republicans are taking the next step in their sham impeachment effort of DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, based around their political motivations and policy disagreements. As the Washington Post rightly captured in its headline, “House GOP unveils Mayorkas impeachment articles despite lack of evidence.“
Leading voices – from legal scholars to former Republican officials to top columnists – are condemning the Republicans’ push and larger implications (see below for a roundup).
According to Vanessa Cárdenas, Executive Director of America’s Voice:
“Republicans should be working with DHS Secretary Mayorkas to protect America against enemies foreign and domestic and delivering solutions for 21st century migrations. Instead, they are proceeding into a politically motivated sham impeachment effort that makes America less safe, fails on legal grounds, stokes dangerous conspiracies, and has zero chance of ultimately leading to Secretary Mayorkas’ removal from office. It’s another indication of Republicans’ preference for dangerous political stunts instead of governance and an effort that actively stokes a climate of fear, division, and danger.”
Among the key voices arguing against the Mayorkas impeachment include:
- Michael Chertoff, former DHS Secretary under George W. Bush: In a Wall Street Journal op-ed titled, “Don’t Impeach Alejandro Mayorkas,” Secretary Chertoff writes, “Republicans in the House should drop this impeachment charade and work with Mr. Mayorkas to deliver for the American people.”
- Jonathan Turley, Trump legal defender: On Fox and Friends, Donald Trump legal defender Jonathan Turley stated, “I just don’t believe they have a cognizable basis here for impeachment.” Turley also wrote a Daily Beast op-ed arguing against the notion of a Cabinet impeachment based around policy disagreements.
- Fabiola Santiago, Miami Herald/El Nuevo Herald columnist: In her influential South Florida column, Santiago asks, “Why is the highest-ranking Cuban American in government being impeached? Politics” She writes, “In an effort to normalize ex-President Donald Trump’s multitude of criminal indictments, felony charges and impeachments, Republicans are going after a public servant who is the highest-ranking Cuban American in the U.S. government.”
- Prominent Miami Cuban Americans: The Miami Herald reported last week, “A group of prominent Miami Cuban Americans is speaking out against efforts in Washington to remove the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, and showing support for their fellow Cuban American in an open letter. Health care mogul Mike Fernandez and other co-signers of the letter, shared first with the Miami Herald, wrote that Mayorkas, who was born in Havana, has a deep love for the United States. The attempt to impeach Mayorkas, they wrote, ‘undermines the Constitution’ because Republicans are trying to remove him based merely on ‘policy differences.’”
- A recent letter from 25 leading constitutional law experts criticizing the impeachment effort: “As scholars of the Constitution, considering the facts currently known and the charges publicly described, we hereby express our view that an impeachment of Secretary Mayorkas would be utterly unjustified as a matter of constitutional law.
