The Republican-controlled House declined to progress the effort to impeach Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas after a privilege resolution saw a vote on the House floor.
The resolution was voted on late in the evening on Nov 13, after Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) introduced the resolution the Thursday before, as The Epoch Times reported.
Because of the nature of the resolution, the House was bound to take it up within two legislative days, forcing lawmakers to take sides.
The resolution asserts that Mayorkas is guilty of a miscarriage of his duties to protect the states, due to the excessive illegal immigration that the resolution asserts is a result of DHS policy.
The lawmakers voted 209-201 to send the resolution back to committee, essentially keeping the measure on ice until the committee chair chooses to take the measure up.
The vote came after a Democratic motion sent the resolution back to the Homeland Security Committee, something that eight Republicans joined Democrats in agreeing to.
After the resolution, which has been an important issue to Greene, was not met with sufficient support by her party, currently in the majority, Greene told reporters that lawmakers who voted against this measure will have to face their voters and justify their decision.
"My articles of Impeachment on Mayorkas have been sitting for months in the Judiciary Committee, and many of the same Republicans that voted with Democrats to refer back to committees sit on the Judiciary Committee," the Georgia lawmaker said.
"So they stood with the Democrats to protect Secretary Mayorkas and prevent his impeachment by putting it back in the Judiciary Committee where they can put articles of impeachment up on the shelf to collect more dust," she declared.
When she introduced the measure, Greene told reporters that it was high time that lawmakers do something to speak up for the Americans who are impacted negatively by the DHS secretary’s policy decisions.
"Just yesterday, two of my constituents from Dalton in Whitfield County, Georgia, were killed in a high-speed head-on collision at the hands of human traffickers smuggling illegal aliens into our country," stated Ms. Greene in a press release concerning the impeachment push.
Greene asserted that Mayorkas had contravened the Secure Fence Act of 2006, which guarantees border security. A border is only considered legally secure if no illegal immigrants or smuggled goods are entering the country.
“Alejandro Nicholas Mayorkas, in his inability to enforce the law, has engaged in a pattern of conduct that is incompatible with his duties as a civil officer of the United States,” Greene’s resolution stated.
When addressing her decision to force the vote, Greene said, “America can’t wait anymore. This is a national security crisis and people are dying every single day.
"We have a duty to make sure that people that serve in the federal government are upholding our laws. Secretary Mayorkas is breaking the law. Our country has been invaded,” she concluded.
