Senator Schumer will make a motion to dismiss the articles of impeachment levied against the homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, shortly after senators are sworn in as jurors for the secretary’s trial for malpractice in border policy and lying. Republicans have warned the New York lawmaker that he would be setting a dangerous precedent by refusing to hold a trial. 

If Mr. Schumer does so and a simple majority of the Senate agrees, it will be the first time in American history that an impeachment trial is tabled before it even begins. Mr. Schumer’s strategy was first reported by Axios.

President Biden and his Democratic allies would seemingly like to keep the issue of immigration out of the headlines as much as possible, given the polling numbers. According to a survey from Monmouth University in December, 28 percent of voters trust Mr. Biden on the issue of immigration after the southern border saw a record number of crossings in 2023. Since the beginning of his administration, more than 8 million aliens have entered America. 

The crisis is being felt far from the border, as Texas and Florida have been bussing thousands of illegal immigrants to self-styled “sanctuary cities,” where they have swamped resources and overwhelmed social services.

According to a Pew poll in February, 57 percent of voters say immigration will be a “top issue” for them when they go to the polls this year. 

Republicans have warned that Mr. Schumer would be making a grave mistake by tabling the Senate trial — a precedent that could come back to bite him when Democrats want to hold an impeachment trial while the GOP holds the majority. 

“I think we ought to have a trial. That’s what we’ve always done before,” Senator Hawley told reporters on Tuesday. “This will be the end of impeachments because … this is how every majority will handle impeachment going forward.”

“The Senate has never tabled articles of impeachment. Nor should it,” Senator Lee says. “Unless the case has been rendered moot by death or departure from office, the Senate has a solemn, constitutional obligation to conduct a trial, as it always has.”

“The United States House of Representatives has investigated this crisis, and it has found that some of the blame for this crisis lies with Secretary Mayorkas,” Senator Kennedy said on the Senate floor in March. “The United States House of Representatives has impeached Secretary Mayorkas for it.”

“Any fair-minded person can see that these are serious charges, and they demand a full trial. The Senate must let the House present its case,” he continued. “If the Senate dismisses these charges without a trial as if it’s just a parking ticket being fixed by some politician, it will be the first time — the very first time — in the Senate’s long history that it has dismissed impeachment charges against an official it has jurisdiction over without that official first resigning.”

Mr. Kennedy said Senate Democrats have a penchant for breaking the upper chamber’s precedents only to later regret their decisions. During the Obama administration, the then-majority leader, Senator Reid, made the decision to lower the filibuster threshold to a simple majority from 60 votes for district and appellate judicial nominees, as well as executive branch officials such as Cabinet secretaries, agency administrators, and ambassadors. 

Mr. Reid did not change the threshold for Supreme Court nominations, though. It wasn’t until 2017 when Senator McConnell, who had taken over as majority leader, changed the threshold for Supreme Court confirmations to a simple majority in order to get Justice Neil Gorsuch on the bench. 

One veteran of a Senate trial, Bruce Castor, who led President Trump’s defense in his 2021 impeachment, tells the Sun that these trials are chaotic proceedings unlike typical courtrooms, and Democrats will use all available tools to get what they want. 

“Unless you are a Washington, inside-the-Beltway practicing lawyer, you probably don’t realize that orders issued by the Senate … will be ignored by House impeachment managers,” he warned, pointing out that the Democratic impeachment managers in the January 6 Senate trial changed the schedule at the last minute. 

The Senate had ordered both managers and the defense team to answer the question of whether Mr. Trump could be tried as an ex-president. Instead, Democrats abruptly went into arguments about Mr. Trump’s culpability in the attack on the Capitol, leaving Mr. Trump’s team unprepared. 

Mr. Castor says the other side will always play games when given the opportunity because of Senate procedure. “You cannot rely on the other side following the order of the Senate,” he says. “That shocked me.”