House holds hearing on impeaching Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over US border

House Republicans are moving closer to impeaching Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas's over the US-Mexico border.

In their first hearing on Wednesday they focused on how states have been affected by his department's actions.

Impeaching a cabinet official is rare but the border is emerging as a key political issue that could dominate the 2024 presidential election.

A growing number of Americans consider migration across the border a crisis.

In December, a record number of migrants were processed at the southern border and for all of 2023 almost 2.5 million people were apprehended there.

The House Committee on Homeland Security has said Mr Mayorkas has failed to enforce US laws at the border, which amounts to a "dereliction of duty".

The hearing included testimony from attorneys general from Montana, Oklahoma and Missouri - states led by Republican governors - who said they have dealt with impacts from his policies even though none of them neighbour Mexico.

House Speaker Mike Johnson recently led a delegation of Republicans to the border, where they got a "first-hand look at the damage and chaos the border catastrophe is causing in all of our communities".

Mr Mayorkas also made a trip, one day before the impeachment hearing, where he put the blame on Congress, calling for it to fix immigration policies.

He said the accusation that he does not uphold US immigration laws "could not be further from the truth" and in a memo his department said that Republicans were making "baseless and pointless political attacks" instead of fixing "broken immigration laws".

Currently, Mr Mayorkas is working with the White House and a bipartisan group of senators to tighten migration laws, which Republicans have been demanded in exchange for agreeing to President Joe Biden's request for more aid for Ukraine and Israel.

Meanwhile, immigration has become one of the biggest hurdles facing President Biden's push for re-election.

A CBS News poll, released this week, found that 63% of Americans want stricter border policies and 45% of Americans now say there is a crisis at the border.

Democratic lawmakers also say Republicans' move to remove Mr Mayorkas are politically motivated, with New York Representative Dan Goldman calling them an "embarrassment to the impeachment clause of the Constitution".

Rhode Island Representative Seth Magaziner, also a Democrat, said there are "real challenges at the border" but Republicans are unwilling to compromise to create effective policy.

Even if convicted in the Republican-controlled House, it is unlikely the Democrat-controlled Senate would find Mr Mayorkas guilty of any crimes.

Still, if he were impeached by the House, he would be the first cabinet official in nearly 150 years to go through the process.