WASHINGTON — Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, on Thursday filed articles of impeachment against President Joe Biden about its handling of migrant crossings along the US-Mexico border.
Greene accused Biden of abusing his power by «endangering the security of the United States and thwarting the will of Congress,» according to the articles.
«Joe Biden has deliberately compromised our national security by refusing to enforce immigration laws and secure our border, allowed approximately 6 million illegal immigrants from more than 160 countries to invade our country, deprived Border Patrol of necessary resources and policies enough to protect our country, and your administration has willfully refused to maintain operational control as required by law,» Greene said in a statement.
The first of three articles of impeachment alleges that Biden’s actions have led to an increase in «illegal aliens and illegal narcotics, including deadly fentanyl, entering the United States.» He also claimed that his administration has «willfully violated» the law «by releasing illegal aliens into the interior of the United States.»
The Covid-era border policy, like Title 42, was put into effect by the Trump administration in 2020 and continued into the Biden administration, until it expired earlier this month. It allowed the federal government to speed up the removal of immigrants without asylum hearings to alleviate the internal spread of the virus.
Republicans have criticized the Biden administration for its decision to end the restriction. But while the lifting of Title 42 was expected to cause an increase in crossings, the number of migrants crossing the southern border has fallen since the policy expired last week.
House Republicans do not have the votes to impeach Biden. Several Republicans had filed articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas earlier this year with similar accusations and there has been no movement on those measures.
The White House strongly condemned Greene on Thursday, calling his articles of impeachment «a shameless political stunt.»
«Is there a bigger example of a shameless, secondary political stunt than an impeachment attack by one of the most extreme MAGA members in Congress over ‘homeland security’ while actively demanding to defund the FBI and even saying that she “would have been armed?” and “would she have won” the January 6 insurrection if only she had been in charge of it?” Ian Sams, White House spokesman for oversight and investigations, in a statement.
He added: «The president is focused on what’s important to the American people, like preventing a default by House Republicans that would collapse the economy and protecting investments that are creating jobs in American industry, not on silly political attacks.» .
Greene’s second article of impeachment claims that Biden had enacted policies that endangered Americans by «allowing illegal aliens who have tested positive for COVID-19 to enter the country and infect American citizens.» He said the Department of Homeland Security «released and transported hundreds of thousands of aliens into the United States without adequately testing the aliens for COVID-19.»
His third article of impeachment alleged that Biden has «created a national security crisis and is endangering the lives of ordinary Americans with his open border policies.» Biden and DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas have reiterated that the border is not open and have discouraged migrants from coming to the US.
Greene had spread numerous conspiracy theories about covid during the pandemic, lashing out at policies put in place to help mitigate the spread of the disease. She also bragged multiple times about never getting a covid-19 vaccine and she was suspended from Twitter for a week in 2021 after sharing misleading information about vaccines on the platform.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, DN.Y., also dismissed Greene’s efforts.
“I think it’s an incredible contrast that on Wednesday, the extreme MAGA Republicans in the House of Representatives are defending, embracing and continuing to play serial con man George Santos,” Jeffries said at a news conference Thursday. «And on Thursday they want to indict the president of the United States of America, the director of the FBI, who was appointed by a Republican president, and the secretary of homeland security.»
These are the first articles of impeachment filed against Biden since House Republicans won a majority in January. Several Republicans, including Greene, previously filed several articles of impeachment against him in his first two years in office when Democrats controlled the House.
Only three presidents have been impeached: Presidents Andrew Johnson in 1868, Bill Clinton in 1998, and Donald Trump, both in 2019 and 2021.