House impeaches Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas

House Republicans, who just successfully impeached Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Tuesday, have been investigating the secretary’s handling of border issues since regaining the House majority in 2022.

Momentum for a swift impeachment of Mr. Mayorkas grew last month, with Republican lawmakers in key battleground states expressing openness to the idea amid a recent surge in migrants crossing the southern border.

Border officials encountered more than 225,000 migrants along the U.S.-Mexico border in December, the highest monthly total since 2000, according to preliminary Department of Homeland Security statistics shared with CNN. . And according to the Department of Homeland Security, 1.4 million people were removed from border encounters in fiscal year 2022, an increase from the previous year.

The border crisis has galvanized Republicans, uniting the party to take more aggressive action on issues that will be central to the 2024 campaign, and Democrats to halt efforts to impeach Mayorkas in November 2023. A minority of the eight Republicans who voted in favor of the bill recently announced their support. He will be impeached after the committee proceedings held late last month.

Moderate Republicans, including some in districts supported by President Joe Biden in 2020, are also more willing to impeach Mayorkas than the president, indicating a shift in the political terrain around the issue. There is.

House Republicans are trying to use Mayorkas’ impeachment to address questions about Biden’s handling of the border crisis, but Republicans are also working with Donald Trump to push for a major bipartisan border deal and foreign aid. contributed to blocking the package. An immigration bill supported by one of the most conservative members of the Senate. House Speaker Mike Johnson said even if the bill were to pass the Senate, it would be dead once it reaches the floor.

“The problems with our broken and outdated immigration system are not new,” Mayorkas wrote in a letter ahead of the vote, urging Congress to offer legislative solutions to “historically polarizing problems.” asked for support.

CNN melanie zanona, Manu Raju and Annie Grayer contributed to this report.