Everyone knew (or at least hoped) that this was coming, and last night it arrived. Congressman Pat Fallon (R – Tx 4) filed two articles of impeachment against DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, alleging high crimes and misdemeanors. The charges stem from Mayorkas’ handling (or lack thereof) of the Biden border crisis as well as his failure to enforce the federal laws that he swore to enforce. This is the fourth (or possibly fifth) major move on the conservative agenda that Speaker McCarthy promised he would support in exchange for being given the gavel. Of course, the actual impeachment will not happen overnight and success can not be taken for granted. (Fox News)

Texas Republican Rep. Pat Fallon has filed impeachment articles against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, delivering on a promise he made last week before the 118th Congress was officially sworn in.

The articles of impeachment against Mayorkas for “high crimes and misdemeanors,” known as House Resolution 8, were introduced by Fallon in the House on Monday and have been referred to the House Judiciary Committee.

Last week, Fallon vowed to file impeachment articles against Mayorkas after the Congress was sworn in. The effort from Republicans in the House is one of many that the new GOP majority will take as it works to fight the Biden administration on issues related to immigration and the southern border crisis.

We don’t have the full articles to review yet, but Fallon provided summaries to the media last week. The first charge alleges that Mayorkas failed to enforce the “Secure the Fence Act of 2006.” That law charges the DHS secretary with a responsibility to “maintain operational control over the entire international land and maritime borders of the United States.”

Anyone who has even glanced at the news or social media over the past couple of years could easily tell you that operational control of the southern border is a fantasy at this point. Even CNN and the alphabet networks have been covering at least some of the Biden border crisis since the midterm elections were safely behind them. Mayorkas may have something of an alibi for that, however. He might point out that the southern border wasn’t entirely secure under Trump either. He’s simply much, much worse at it.

The second charge could be more serious. It accuses Mayorkas of having “willfully provided perjurious, false, and misleading testimony to Congress” while under oath. That took place in both April and November of last year when he twice testified before Congress that the border was “secure.” I suppose he could try to argue that “secure” is a relative term, for all the good it will do him.

Neither of those debates will likely matter all that much. As we’ve noted here for as long as I can remember, impeachment is a political process, not a legal one. (Just ask Donald Trump.) Republicans and conservatives are furious about the border crisis that Joe Biden created as soon as he took office and Mayorkas is the person responsible for keeping that sort of thing from happening. If they want to impeach him over it and the GOP can herd all of its cats into the corral, there will be nothing stopping them from doing it.

Of course, then the impeachment would go to the Senate, where Mayorkas would almost certainly not be found guilty. Does any of this sound familiar? The only difference is that a united Republican caucus wouldn’t need any Democrats to play the role of Liz Cheney in this case.

This will likely end up being little more than political theater in the end, but it’s yet another example of being careful about what you wish for. When the Democrats launched two hopeless attempts to remove Donald Trump from office via impeachment, they opened the door for the GOP to do the same, and now the shoe is on the other foot. It’s very similar to when the Democrats in the Senate originally started weakening the filibuster to gain some political leverage. The Republicans turned around and did the same thing when they retook the majority and the situation spiraled out of control from there. Many aspects of the rules governing both chambers could seriously use a reset in the current climate, but I honestly don’t see how that happens.