House Republicans have taken another step towards impeaching Homeland Security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for presiding over the nation’s ongoing immigration crisis.

In the early hours of Wednesday morning, the House Homeland Security Committee voted 18-15 along party lines to send two articles of impeachment against Mayorkas to the House for a vote.

The full House vote could take place as soon as next week. If the House approves the impeachment resolution, the charges would ultimately go to the Senate for a trial.

The impeachment charges contend that Mayorkas is guilty of “high crimes and misdemeanors” that amount to a “willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law” on immigration and a “breach of the public trust.”

“Alejandro N. Mayorkas willfully and systemically refused to comply with the immigration laws, failed to control the border to the detriment of national security, compromised public safety, and violated the rule of law and separation of powers in the Constitution, to the manifest injury of the people of the United States,” the impeachment resolution reads.

The move to impeach a Cabinet secretary is rare — only once in American history has it been done successfully. President Ulysses Grant’s war secretary, William Belknap, was impeached in 1876, over corruption regarding his government contracts. The attempted impeachment of a cabinet secretary for refusing to uphold the law is unprecedented.