After Erick Swawell and Toni Gonzales, Haitian American Congresswoman Sheila Sheifilus McCormick might be the next to resign or be expelled from Congress.
House Speaker Mike Johnson broke from his characteristic caution Tuesday and said publicly what many members of both parties had been saying privately: Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick should be expelled from Congress.
“I have been a zealous guardian of due process around here,” Johnson told reporters, according to The Hill. “I do think certainly on Cherfilus-McCormick, the Ethics Committee has gone through all of its processes, and they found some alarming facts. I believe it’ll be the consensus of the body that she should be expelled.”
The statement marks a significant shift for a Speaker who voted against the 2023 expulsion of Republican Rep. George Santos, citing concern about removing members before criminal proceedings concluded. With the Ethics Committee now having issued formal findings, Johnson appears to have crossed his own threshold.
The case carries particular weight for the Haitian diaspora community.
Cherfilus-McCormick was born in Brooklyn to parents from Haiti and raised in Queens, before building a career in South Florida’s heavily Haitian-American congressional district — a seat she won in a 2022 special election following the death of longtime Rep. Alcee Hastings.
Three Years of Investigation, 25 Findings
An adjudicatory subcommittee found on March 27 that Cherfilus-McCormick committed 25 ethics violations, including breaking campaign finance laws. The allegations center on her receipt of millions of dollars from her family’s health care business following Florida’s overpayment of roughly $5 million in disaster relief funds — money prosecutors say she used to fund her 2021 special primary campaign and 2022 congressional campaign through a network of businesses and family members.
The findings followed a rare public ethics hearing — the first since 2010 — that stretched more than six hours, during which lawmakers from both parties questioned Cherfilus-McCormick’s attorney. The subcommittee deliberated past midnight before announcing its decision.
Federal prosecutors separately indicted Cherfilus-McCormick on November 18, 2025, before a Miami grand jury, on charges of stealing more than $5 million in FEMA disaster relief funds. Prosecutors say she and her siblings used the money for personal expenses, including the purchase of a large diamond ring she wore in her official congressional portrait.
If convicted on all 15 federal charges, she faces up to 53 years in federal prison. She has pleaded not guilty and denied any wrongdoing throughout the proceedings.
A Fractured House, a Rare Precedent
Expelling a sitting member of Congress is one of the most consequential and infrequent acts the House can take. If the full House votes to remove Cherfilus-McCormick, she would be just the seventh member in history to be expelled. The most recent was Republican Rep. George Santos in 2023, ousted after the Ethics Committee found substantial evidence of illegal financial activity.
The political math makes the decision unusually fraught. Republicans currently hold the narrowest of House majorities, and a group of more than a dozen swing-district House Democrats sent House leadership a letter Monday urging them to direct the Ethics Committee to expedite its investigations into members facing serious misconduct allegations.
The pressure is compounded by a broader congressional ethics storm. On Monday, both Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell of California and Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales of Texas announced their resignations amid separate sexual misconduct allegations. Their departures have intensified calls for accountability — and raised the political stakes around Cherfilus-McCormick’s case.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida has been among the most vocal advocates for removal. “Either resign or be expelled. Those are your two options,” Luna posted on social media Tuesday, adding: “Sheila stole $5 million in FEMA funds.”
Rep. Nancy Mace went further Monday, calling for four members — Cherfilus-McCormick, Gonzales, Swalwell, and Rep. Cory Mills — to resign immediately or face expulsion votes. “We don’t care what party you’re in,” Mace said. “Stealing millions in taxpayer dollars, sexually assaulting your staff, lying about your service record — none of it is acceptable.”
Democratic Leadership Stays Quiet
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries declined to call for Cherfilus-McCormick’s resignation when asked directly after the Ethics findings, saying only that the panel “has one final step in their process.”
Cherfilus-McCormick herself has stated she will not resign. The full Ethics Committee is scheduled to meet on April 21 to determine what sanctions to recommend to the full House — a decision that could set the stage for one of the most consequential expulsion votes in decades.
For the Haitian diaspora — a community that celebrated her 2022 election as a milestone of representation — the case presents a painful reckoning between pride in that history and the weight of the findings against her.
Should Sheila Sherfilus McCormick leave Congress, the Haitian diaspora would lose one of their strongest advocates on Capitol Hill. Since her election in 2022, Mrs. Sherfilus has been at the forefront of several battles to protect the legal status of Haitian immigrants in the United States. She has sponsored or co-sponsored several bills regarding Haiti and Haitian immigrants in the US.
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Sources: The Hill; Florida Politics; NBC News, MSN.COM
