Social media influencers, journalists and politicians lit up social media after Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas was impeached by the House of Representatives in a historic vote.
The office of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Mayorkas’ impeachment trial will begin later this month.
The vote quickly sparked fierce debate online, with pro and anti-Mayorkas voices weighing in on the impeachment on social media.
HOUSE VOTES TO IMPEACH DHS SECRETARY MAYORKAS OVER BORDER CRISIS
Republican lawmakers celebrated the historic vote, calling on the Biden administration to secure the border.
“To all families who have lost a loved one due to Joe Biden’s man-made border crisis, we have answered the call: Sec. Alejandro Mayorkas has been IMPEACHED,” Congressman Byron Donalds, R-Fla., wrote. “House Republicans stand with the American people to ensure everything that can be done, will be done to SECURE OUR NATION.”
“Alejandro Mayorkas has just been impeached by the House of Representatives,” Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., wrote. “His open-borders policies have led to ACTUAL death and destruction within our country. It is now incumbent upon the Senate to take this up and remove this man from office. He has NO place in our government.”
Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. also responded to Mayorkas’ impeachment online.
“Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas was just impeached for failing to secure the border,” he wrote. “As President, I will build a bipartisan cabinet and hold them accountable when they fail to do their jobs.”
MSNBC executive opinion editor Tim O’Brien bashed Republicans for impeaching Mayorkas.
“The House — after intentionally sabotaging a bi-partisan bill meant to address the immigration crisis at the southern border — votes to impeach Mayorkas for…wait for it…failing to address the immigration crisis at the border,” O’Brien wrote. “Craven rodeo clowns.”
Political influencer Brian Krassenstein wrote that House Republicans are overly focused on blaming Biden government officials over working to actively stop the border crisis.
“They have officially spent more time trying to impeach Mayorkas than trying to come up with new laws to provide Mayorkas tools to actually do his job better,” Krassenstein wrote. “This will end in nothing more than the House wasting more time trying to blame someone for their own inactions. Democrats better be ready to show the actual facts to counter the narrative that our border problems are all Mayorkas’ fault. Use this to your advantage.”
Berkeley professor and former Clinton administration Labor Secretary Robert Reich claimed that the impeachment was “absurd.”
“For DHS to detain every migrant with a pending immigration case, as the GOP claims Sec. Mayorkas was required ‘by law’ to do, it would require a system 50% larger than all federal and state prisons combined,” he wrote. “It’s absurd. This takes the notion of impeachment to a new low.”
USER’S MANUAL TO WHAT’S NEXT NOW THAT THE HOUSE IMPEACHED MAYORKAS
A Cabinet secretary has not been impeached by the U.S. Congress since 1876.
Tuesday evening’s vote marked House Republicans’ second attempt at impeaching Mayorkas. GOP lawmakers targeted the Biden official over the ongoing migrant crisis at the U.S. southern border, accusing him of deliberately flaunting existing immigration law and worsening the situation.
Fox News’ Elizabeth Elkind and Bradford Betz contributed to this report.
