“History will not look kindly on House Republicans for their blatant act of unconstitutional partisanship that has targeted an honorable public servant in order to play petty political games,” he said.

The approach threatened to lower the bar for impeachments — which already has fallen in recent years — reducing what was once Congress’s most potent tool to remove despots from power to a weapon to be deployed in political fights.

“Congress has taken decisive action to defend our constitutional order and hold accountable a public official who has violated his oath of office,” Representative Mark E. Green, Republican of Tennessee and the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, which prepared the charges against Mr. Mayorkas, said in a statement.

They also accuse Mr. Mayorkas of having failed to produce documents, including materials he was ordered to give them under subpoena, during an investigation into his border policies and evading their efforts to get him to testify as part of their impeachment proceedings.

A Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman, Mia Ehrenberg, criticized House Republicans on Tuesday night, accusing them of “trampling on the Constitution for political gain rather than working to solve the serious challenges at the border.”

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