Senators were sworn in Wednesday for their third impeachment trial in four years, this time of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas.
House Republicans, who say Mayorkas has failed to fulfill his duties in upholding immigration law, are pushing for a full Senate trial of the case against him.
Senate Democrats are poised to dismiss what they consider baseless allegations.
Mayorkas, a Cuban immigrant who grew up in California, is the first U.S. Cabinet official impeached in nearly 150 years.
Wednesday’s proceedings could also be the first time the Senate has ever declined to hold a trial after impeachment by the House.
It has been two months since Mayorkas, a California native and the highest-ranking Latino in the federal government, was narrowly impeached by a single-vote margin.
As the Senate convened Wednesday, Mayorkas was in New York City, where he held a news conference announcing a public awareness campaign to combat child sexual exploitation and abuse. As the trial got underway, Mayorkas was in transit back to Washington.
“Republicans would rather stand in the way of solving our challenges than do the hard work of leading our nation,” said Sen. Laphonza Butler (D-Calif.). “We don’t resolve policy disagreements by impeachment. We talk with the American people, get in a room, and do the work. The charged crime here is a farcical substitute for doing the hard work.”
“Every second spent on this trial is a waste of time,” Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) wrote Tuesday on the social media platform X.
Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said he sought to accommodate the wishes of Republican colleagues in agreeing to a period of debate before moving to dismiss the case against Mayorkas.
Engaging in a full trial “would be a grave mistake and could set a dangerous precedent for the future,” he said, urging colleagues to save impeachment “for those rare cases we truly need it.”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) urged his colleagues to engage in a full trial.
“Tabling articles of impeachment would be unprecedented in the history of the Senate,” he said in a Wednesday morning speech on the Senate floor.
“Tabling would mean declining to discharge our duties as jurors,”McConnell added. “It would mean running both from our fundamental responsibility and from the glaring truth of the record-breaking crisis at our southern border.”
