Congressman Al Green on Monday filed articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump over the twice-impeached Republican's violent campaign to round up and deport immigrants, which has killed citizens of various countries, including the United States.
Green, a Texas Democrat who has repeatedly pushed to impeach Trump for a range reasons during his two terms, argued in his new resolution that "our country and the lives of people within it are at risk as President Donald John Trump is a great threat to the United States democratic republic, its Constitution, and democracy."
"He is abusing the powers of the presidency by operating United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) as his vicious, quota-driven, unaccountable paramilitary police forces," Green's resolution states, "transgressing with anonymity and secrecy, assaulting people, committing and covering up unjustified killings of civilians (including Renée Good, Alex Pretti, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, and Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero) with impunity (acting as judge, jury, prosecutor, and executioner), terrorizing communities, and brazenly and wantonly devolving the United States democratic republic into an authoritarian regime, where unjustified killings and coverups by ICE and CBP are normalized."
Despite agents with ICE and CBP killing Good and Pretti, both US citizens, as part of Trump's anti-immigrant operation in Minnesota's Twin Cities in January, the Republican-controlled Congress passed and the president signed a $70 billion bill for the Department of Homeland Security agencies in June.
Roughly a month later, an ICE agent fatally shot Salgado Araujo, a Mexican man, in Houston, Texas. Less than a week after that, another agent similarly killed Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, of Colombia, in Biddeford, Maine. Deaths on US streets and in immigrant detention centers have fueled anger and calls for reform—or even abolishing ICE—from the public and some elected Democrats.
The resolution introduced Monday is the first from Trump's second term to mention his anti-immigrant policies. Green—who has served in the House of Representatives for over two decades but is set to leave his seat at the end of this session after losing a May primary—has introduced articles of impeachment three other times since the president's return to power last year. Reps. Shri Thanedar (D-Mich.) and John Larson (D-Conn.) have separately put forward resolutions during this term.
Green and other Democrats also introduced impeachment articles during Trump's first term. The president was first impeached for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress in December 2019, then again after his supporters stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. However, Trump—the only president to be impeached twice—was not convicted by the Senate either time.
Polling conducted in March by Lake Research Partners for Free Speech for People (FSFP)—a legal advocacy group behind a campaign to impeach Trump again—found that 52% of US voters support a third impeachment, including 84% of Democrats, 55% of Independents, and 14% of Republicans. Leaders at the organization welcomed Green's new articles on Monday.
"The president of the United States has no authority to wield armed federal agents to intimidate communities, suppress constitutional rights, or consolidate political power on American soil," said FSFP chairman and senior legal adviser. "The framers anticipated this kind of abuse of executive power. They gave Congress the remedy: impeachment."
John Bonifaz, FSFP's president and co-founder, declared that "this is an existential moment for our nation and our democracy. We either have a Constitution, or we don't."
"Donald Trump has already engaged in multiple abuses of power," he stressed. "We call on our elected officials in Congress to carry out the mandate of their oath to protect the Constitution at this critical time by standing up and demanding impeachment proceedings against this lawless president."
