U.S. House of Representatives leaders will send the impeachment articles of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to the Senate on April 10, and senators will be sworn in as jurors the following day, reports Roll Call. This is the first impeachment trial for a cabinet member in more than a century. The impeachment, which requires a two-thirds majority to convict, is unlikely to succeed in the narrowly divided Senate, where Democrats have the majority and have largely backed Mayorkas and the Biden administration.
Republicans have targeted Mayorkas for months over disagreements about the Biden administration’s immigration policy. They are charging Mayorkas with “high crimes and misdemeanors,” including “willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law and his breach of the public trust." A spokesman for Sen. Chuck Schumer’s office reiterated Schumer’s statement in February calling the impeachment a “sham” and “another embarrassment” for House Republicans. Senate leadership has not said how they plan to handle the trial.