Representative Brian Mast, a Florida Republican, missed the House vote to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas after his flight to Washington, D.C., was unable to take off.
House Republicans voted on Tuesday to impeach Mayorkas over his handling of the U.S.-Mexico border amid an uptick in migrant arrivals. There were more than 2.4 million encounters at the southern border during the 2023 fiscal year, up from roughly 1.7 million in 2021, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data. The resolution accuses the secretary of ignoring immigration laws and making “false statements” about the U.S.
The vote only passed the House by a 1-vote margin, with 214 members of Congress voting in support of impeachment while 213 voted against it. Three Republican lawmakers joined Democrats in opposing the legislation.
However, the number of Republicans voting to impeach Mayorkas shrank after Mast was unable to make it to the vote in time due to flight difficulties.
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“It looks like I’m going to miss the vote to impeach Mayorkas. I was there for the first one. I absolutely voted to do that. It looks like I’m going to miss this one,” Mast said in a video posted on X, formerly Twitter.
He said he was waiting in the Palm Beach airport for around nine hours for a flight out of Florida after his plane was delayed due to a broken circuit board. He added that other members of Congress representing the Palm Beach area, such as Representative Lois Frankel, a Democrat, were also in the airport and poised to miss the vote.
He celebrated Congress still having enough votes to impeach Mayorkas, who he said was “willfully refusing” to do his job.
“Thankfully, despite mechanical failures on my flight, we still had enough votes to impeach him tonight. He has abandoned the trust of the American people, and he deserves to be impeached,” he said.
Newsweek reached out to Mast’s office for comment via email.
While at least one Republican who attended the first impeachment vote, which failed to secure majority support, missed the vote Tuesday evening, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise returned to Congress in time for the second vote. Scalise was absent for the first vote due to cancer treatment and voted to impeach Mayorkas on Tuesday.
Three Republicans joined Democrats in voting “no” on the impeachment: Representatives Ken Buck of Colorado, Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin and Tom McClintock of California. The three also voted against impeachment during last week’s vote.
Representative Judy Chu, a California Democrat, and Maria Elvira Salazar, a Florida Republican, also missed the vote.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.