Republicans’ Mayorkas Impeachment Push Is All About Biden

Mayorkas is just a proxy for the president in the House GOP’s impeachment inquiry. Photo: Samuel Corum/Getty Images

To be very clear, congressional Republicans are not going to remove either Homeland Security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas or his boss Joe Biden from office this year. In the unlikely event they can impose enough party discipline in the House to impeach either Democrat, conviction by the Senate is significantly less likely than it was in either of Donald Trump’s impeachments, which fell far short of the required two-thirds vote.

But they are pursuing impeachment proceedings against Biden (having formally voted to do so on December 13) as an adjunct to their 2024 effort to defeat the 46th president at the polls; the “inquiry” that will soon unfold in the House will air a wide range of lurid allegations of Biden misconduct and misgovernance. And they have already begun looking toward impeachment of Mayorkas on grounds that he has failed to fully enforce federal immigration laws (a Marjorie Taylor Greene resolution to impeach him immediately was referred to the House Homeland Security Committee back in November as a way to delay action on her demands). Indeed, show-trial-styled impeachment hearings will soon begin in that committee in the days and weeks just ahead with there being little doubt that Mayorkas will be found guilty as charged. The impeachment campaign will gain steam this very week as House Speaker Mike Johnson and a large delegation of his troops visit the southern border, prepared to be outraged.

There are dual reasons for the new GOP offensive against Mayorkas. The first is the most immediate: to put pressure on Democrats to accept major changes in immigration and asylum policies in negotiations (in which Mayorkas is a key figure) over a supplemental appropriations bill that will include aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. But the second reason will persist beyond such considerations: to provide a clear channel for attacks on Biden’s immigration policies at a time when they have never been less popular and are dividing Democrats while uniting the GOP.

Without question, Biden’s alleged refusal to enforce immigration laws will be included in the presidential impeachment hearings the House will soon begin. But Republicans are far too addicted to the corruption claims associated with Hunter Biden to make anything else the centerpiece of the Joe Biden hearings. While they are cutting capers on the theme of a “Biden crime family” enriching itself while persecuting poor Donald Trump and the January 6 “patriots,” House Republicans cannot do justice to their parallel arguments that Biden has gleefully opened the southern borders in order to allow the influx of fentanyl and future Democratic voters. Insofar as Mayorkas has simply followed the Biden administration’s policies on and beyond the southern border, impeachment hearings ostensibly aimed at him will really be aimed at the president. And voters who refuse to go down the Hunter Biden rabbit hole will be pointed to the “high crimes and misdemeanors” associated with Biden-Mayorkas immigration and asylum policies and perhaps find a reason to vote against the Democratic ticket in November. It’s all just election-year performance art.