What’s next for Alejandro Mayorkas? From Cuban refugee who once fled to the US to the first Cabinet secretary to be impeached since 1876 for ‘causing’ the border crisis

Alejandro Mayorkas, 64, is now only the second Cabinet secretary to be ousted and the first in nearly 150 years after Republicans punished the head of Homeland Security for his handling of the southern border crisis.

By a margin of just one vote, the House of Representatives finally impeached the DHS secretary on Tuesday — a long time coming for Republican Party members to be angry at Democrats for relaxing immigration policies amid rising migration across the border between the US and Mexico.

The charges against Mayorkas come after the House of Representatives narrowly succeeded in passing the motion in a separate vote last week.

DailyMail.com delves into Mayorkas’ background, how he became the first Cabinet secretary to be ousted since 1876 and what’s next for the head of DHS.

The house has cordoned off MAYORKAS, what now?

Tuesday’s 214-213 vote is largely a rebuke of President Joe Biden and his administration’s policies on migration and the southern border, as the slim Democratic majority in the Senate is likely to acquit Mayorkas.

Republican Reps. Ken Buck (Colo.), Mike Gallagher (Wis.) and Tom McClintock (California) joined Democrats in opposing the impeachment vote. They said this would be “unconstitutional” and set a “bad precedent” for the Republican Party. future.

While the House of Representatives only needs a simple majority to impeach a Cabinet secretary, the Senate must get a two-thirds majority to convict and remove the official.

Similarly, Mayorkas, former President Donald Trump, was impeached twice by the House of Representatives but later acquitted by the Senate.

Since it is highly unlikely that the Senate will reach the threshold needed to actually convict Mayorkas, it appears that nothing will change after the vote in the House of Representatives.

Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said the House’s appointed Republican impeachment managers will submit the articles to the Senate when it reconvenes at the end of this month.

Senate President Pro Tempore Patty Murray (D-Wash.) will preside over a trial.

WHO IS ALEJANDRO MAYORKAS?

Born in Havana, Cuba, Mayorkas’ family fled the Cuban Revolution to Miami, Florida when he was just one year old.

They later settled in Los Angeles, California, where Mayorkas grew up.

The DHS Secretary’s father, Charles R. “Nicky” Mayorka, was a Cuban Jew who owned and operated a steel wool factory outside Havana. And his mother, Anita Gabor Mayorkas, was a Romanian Jew whose family escaped the Holocaust and fled to Cuba in the 1940s.

Mayorkas graduated from the University of California Berkeley in 1981 and received his law degree from Loyola in 1985.

He has two daughters, Giselle and Amelia, with wife Tanya Mayorkas.

A baby Alejandro Mayorkas pictured with his mother Anita in Havana, Cuba before the family fled the Cuban Revolution to come to the US

After three years of litigating in private practice, Mayorkas has now been recommended as senator. Dianne Feinstein (D-California) and appointed Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Central District of California by President Bill Clinton in 1989. He prosecuted federal crimes and specialized in white-collar crimes such as tax evasion and money laundering.

Barack Obama selected Mayorkas to lead the presidential transition team responsible for the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. And then in 2009, he was appointed director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) by then-President Obama.

Notably, he implemented Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) in just 60 days.

Mayorkas served as deputy secretary of DHS under Obama from December 2013 to October 2016 and rejoined the White House team when Joe Biden took office in 2021, serving as DHS secretary since day one.

Earlier in February, Mayorkas said of the impeachment proceedings that he is “making sure it doesn’t distract me.”

Mayorkas appears as a young boy here in Miami, Florida with his father, Nicky, and sister, Cathy

WHAT LED THE HOUSE TO IMPEACH MAYORKAS?

Since Biden became president, Republicans have been highly critical of his handling of migration and illegal immigration.

On his first day in office, Biden rolled out several policies implemented by predecessor Donald Trump that border hawks say were essentially designed to quell the surge across the southern border.

Mayorkas made quick enemies with Republicans as he sought to implement Biden’s policies at DHS, including halting construction of Trump’s southern border wall.

Many Republicans argue that ending the Remain in Mexico policy is responsible for the surge because migrants will no longer have to wait in Mexico while their asylum claims are processed. Now, migrants who apply for asylum are released into the country, with court dates sometimes years in the future.

And now the pandemic-era Title 42 policy has been rescinded, meaning border agents are unable to immediately deport those who seek asylum on the grounds of a health emergency — and must instead act to process them.

Republican immigration hawks have been waiting for years to rebuke President Joe Biden’s policies at the southern border by ousting Secretary Mayorkas — the man charged with implementing and executing those policies

Since Biden and Mayorkas took their respective positions in 2021, there have been record-breaking migrant crossings along the southern border for months.

A new high was reached in December when CBP encountered 301,983 migrants crossing from Mexico into the U.S.

The shocking numbers of crossings have also come with other side effects of migration, including deaths and a huge amount of drug smuggling and human trafficking. The “openness” of the southern border has been blamed by Republicans as a reason for the emergence of the fentanyl crisis in recent years.

Mayorkas’ impeachment was based on “deliberate and systematic refusal to comply with the law” and “breach of public trust,” further proving that the vote was a rebuke of Biden’s policies regarding the massive surge of migration since he took office instead of direct complaints about the secretary.

Secretary of War William Belknap was the first Cabinet secretary to be impeached by the House of Representatives – and only one before Mayorkas. In 1876 he was acquitted by the Senate

FIRST – AND ONLY – CABINET ACCUSATION FOR MAYORKAS

The last Cabinet official to be ousted before Mayorkas was Secretary of War William Belknap this week, 148 years earlier.

On March 2, 1876, Belknap was impeached by the House of Representatives for his role in the trading post scandal – he was acquitted by the Senate.

Belknap was the first Cabinet secretary in American history to ever face impeachment, making Mayorkas the second ever and the first in nearly 150 years.

The Secretary of War was involved in the postal trader, or Indian Ring, scandal at Fort Sill, where Belknap and his wives at various times received kickbacks under a trade contract.

The scandal led to Belknap’s sudden resignation and impeachment by the House of Representatives, which was controlled by Democrats at the time. His Senate trial led to his acquittal and his federal trial in Washington DC was dismissed by Judge Arthur MacArthur Sr.