The Senate trial of the American Minister in charge of Immigration, Alejandro Mayorkas, began Wednesday at the request of the Republicans, but should be quickly rejected in this institution with a Democratic majority.
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In the middle of an election year, immigration has emerged as one of the key issues in the campaign pitting Democratic President Joe Biden against former Republican leader Donald Trump.
Republicans accuse Minister Alejandro Mayorkas of provoking a crisis on the border between the United States and Mexico.
For this reason, they launched impeachment proceedings against him.
In mid-February, the 64-year-old minister was indicted in the House of Representatives, where the conservatives are in the majority.
1876
On Tuesday, this indictment was officially transmitted to the Senate which must, as required by the Constitution, put the minister on trial.
The procedure formally began early Wednesday afternoon, but it was brushed aside by the Democrats who accused the Republicans of making the minister a scapegoat.
The leader of the Democrats in the Senate Chuck Schumer has promised to do everything to expedite this trial, and reject it – perhaps as early as Wednesday.
“In the name of the integrity of the Senate, and in order to preserve the impeachment procedure for the rare cases where it is truly necessary, senators should reject the accusations brought today,” he declared from the chamber .
The last indictment of a minister by Congress dates back to… 1876. War Minister William Belknap, accused of corruption, resigned before the end of the impeachment procedure.
The Constitution provides that Congress can impeach the president, a minister, or federal judges for “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”
“Wasting precious time”
The main person concerned, Alejandro Mayorkas, has repeatedly rejected the Republicans’ accusations, accusing them of “wasting precious time and taxpayers’ money” with the impeachment procedure.
The situation nonetheless remains a headache for Joe Biden, less than seven months before the presidential election.
Republicans, most of them close to former President Donald Trump with very anti-immigration rhetoric, accuse the Democratic president of having allowed the country to be “invaded”, taking as an example the record number of migrants arrested at the border , 302,000 in December.
Donald Trump regularly refers to particularly shocking murders, committed by people who entered the United States illegally, to emphasize that there is a wave of crime due to illegal migrants.
But neither the police statistics available in major American cities, nor the studies carried out by experts, show the reality of such a phenomenon.
