US House votes to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas speaks during a House Committee on Homeland Security hearing in November last year. AFP

Republicans in the House of Representatives voted late on Tuesday to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

The motion passed with the narrowest possible margin – 214-213 – as House Majority Leader Steve Scalise returned to Washington from cancer treatment to reverse an embarrassing defeat of the charges last week.

There is little chance, however, that the necessary two-thirds majority of the Democratic-led Senate will vote to convict him and remove him from office.

Party leaders rushed to re-do the vote hours before polls closed in a toss-up special election in New York that could give Democrats an extra House seat and scuttle Republicans' campaign to bring charges against a member of President Joe Biden's administration.

Following the vote, the White House hit back, saying “history will not look kindly on House Republicans for their blatant act of unconstitutional partisanship”.

In a statement, Mr Biden called Mr Mayorkas an “honourable public servant” who has become the target of Republicans' “petty political games”.

Republicans are pressing the impeachment charges against Mr Mayorkas as the party ramps up attacks on the Biden administration’s border enforcement record and backlash against surging migration moves to the centre of the presidential campaign.

“Instead of staging political stunts like this, Republicans with genuine concerns about the border should want Congress to deliver more border resources and stronger border security,” Mr Biden said in his statement.

“Sadly, the same Republicans pushing this baseless impeachment are rejecting bipartisan plans Secretary Mayorkas and others in my administration have worked hard on to strengthen border security at this very moment – reversing from years of their own demands to pass stronger border bills.”

Mr Mayorkas, the first Latino and immigrant to head the department, is the second cabinet member in US history – and the first in almost 150 years – to be impeached.

The first vote to impeach Mr Mayorkas failed last week after a deadlock, with three Republicans joining all Democrats to oppose the resolution on constitutional grounds, with the dissenting Republicans arguing he was being impeached over policy differences rather than “the high crimes and misdemeanours” standard set in the US Constitution.

Immigration has risen to near the top of voters’ election-year concerns as illegal border crossings soar while inflation eases, unemployment remains low and consumer confidence strengthens.