Alejandro Mayorkas: House of Representatives votes to remove secretary of homeland security

The House of Representatives has decided to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas by a very small margin. This makes him the first cabinet member to face impeachment in almost 150 years.

Many Republicans think Mr Mayorkas is responsible for a lot of migrants coming to the US from Mexico.

The Republicans voted 214 to 213 in favor of the measure, after it didn’t pass last week.

The problem will now go to the Senate, where the Democrats are in charge, and it will probably not pass.

President Joe Biden said that the vote was a clear and unfair decision made by one political party and a move meant to gain attention.

Critics said Mr. Mayorkas did not keep his promise to do his job well and faithfully because he did not work enough to make the border safer.

Most Democrats and a few Republicans voted against impeachment.

The three people who left their group also voted no on the first try to remove Mr. Mayorkas from his job. They said that taking him out of his job for something not very serious would make the punishment in the constitution weaker and wouldn’t help with the border problem.

Over 63 million people came to the US without permission since 2021. This has made immigration a big problem for politicians before the election in November.

Donald Trump is really focusing on this problem in his campaign to remove Mr. Biden from his job.

After the vote, Mr. Biden said Mr. Mayorkas is a good public servant.

The president said he has followed the law and showed a strong dedication to our country’s important values.

Mia Ehrenberg, who speaks for the Department of Homeland Security, said that Republicans are not focused on solving the big problems at our border. Instead, she said they are focused on going against the constitution.

Republican leader Mike Johnson said that he thinks Mr. Mayorkas should be removed from his job.

In January, Republicans accused Mr Mayorkas of not doing his job in enforcing immigration rules and lying about the safety of the border.

Democrat Al Green from Texas came to vote against impeachment while wearing hospital clothes, surprising everyone. He was in the hospital getting surgery.

House leader Steve Scalise voted after missing last vote due to cancer treatment. His coming back helped the Republicans get enough votes to win.

Impeachment is the first step in removing a government official for doing something really bad. It’s in the US Constitution.

It needs more than half of the House to agree, then the Senate has a trial.

We need at least two out of three people to agree for it to work.

The impeachment probably won’t happen because the Democrats only have a small majority in the Senate.

The House will give the Senate the impeachment articles on 26 February.

The last cabinet secretary to be impeached was Secretary of War William Belknap in 1876. He resigned just before the vote.

In a poll done in January by CBS, nearly half of Americans said they think the situation at the border is a crisis. 63% of people said they want stricter border policies.

The US agency in charge of protecting the border said that fewer people crossed the border in January. They think this happened because of the usual patterns at that time of year and because they have been working harder to enforce the rules.