Minnesota’s congressional delegation broke along party lines Tuesday in the U.S. House’s 214-213 vote to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
The impeachment vote was an unprecedented move by a Republican majority determined to punish the Biden administration for its handling of security at the southern border. It came a week after House Republicans’ first attempt to impeach Mayorkas failed in an embarrassing setback.
Minnesota’s four Republican members — Reps. Tom Emmer, Michelle Fischbach, Pete Stauber and Brad Finstad — voted to impeach Mayorkas. Democratic U.S. Reps. Betty McCollum, Ilhan Omar, Dean Phillips and Angie Craig voted against the move.
“The @HouseGOP is once again leading where Democrats have failed in taking action to secure our borders and protect our communities,” Emmer posted Tuesday night on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Fischbach said in a statement that Mayorkas “refused to enforce federal immigration law, risking our national security.”
“The American people are feeling pain of his failures every day, and he has lost their trust and the trust of the members of the House of Representatives,” Fischbach said. “House Republicans are following through on their commitment to hold the government accountable with our vote to impeach, and we will continue working to secure our borders and protect our national security.”
Democrats in Congress labeled the impeachment a political stunt, arguing the charges leveled against the secretary were untrue and didn’t meet the Constitution’s standard of treason, bribery or “high crimes and misdemeanors.”
President Joe Biden called the impeachment of his Cabinet secretary a “blatant act of unconstitutional partisanship that has targeted an honorable public servant in order to play petty political games.’’
