Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene is forcing a vote to impeach the country’s top homeland security official over his handling of the US southern border.
Ms Greene, a Republican, has accused Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas of failing to secure the US-Mexico border and “breaking his oath”.
Mr Mayorka’s office has called the accusations “baseless”.
The impeachment motion has little chance of success.
The Georgia Representative said her move was spurred by the deaths of two Americans in her district who were killed by human smugglers.
“This isn’t just a southern border issue, it’s affecting our whole country and we have to do something about it,” Ms Greene said on Thursday.
Under House rules, the Republican-controlled chamber will have two working days to take a vote on the motion, although procedural delays could shift that timeline.
If it passes, it is almost certain to be defeated in the Democrat-controlled Senate, where a two-thirds vote would be needed to remove Mr Mayorkas from office.
Republicans on the party’s far-right flank, including Ms Greene, have repeatedly called for impeachment of President Joe Biden and his top officials over the border and other issues.
In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security said Congressional Republicans have “wasted months trying to score points with baseless attacks”.
“Instead of continuing their reckless impeachment charades and attacks on law enforcement, Congress should work with us to keep our country safe, build on the progress DHS is making, and deliver desperately needed reforms for our broken immigration system that only legislation can fix,” the statement said.
The number of people apprehended at the US-Mexico border exceeded 2 million both in the 2022 and the 2023 fiscal years.
In September 2023 alone, authorities apprehended more than 200,000 migrants crossing the border, according to Department of Homeland Security figures.
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