Tennessee Rep. Mark Green can impeach a Cabinet secretary and lead immigration reform too

One person who can change the national conversation on immigration and border security lives in Middle Tennessee – Congressman Mark Green, R-Clarksville, who chairs the U.S. House of Representatives’ Homeland Security Committee.

Green, a doctor, Army combat veteran, and three-term incumbent, now represents a significant portion of Nashville since the 2022 redistricting. He has visited the U.S.-Mexico border and is a firm critic of the Biden Administration.

In fact, he is leading the charge by House Republicans to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, accusing him of dereliction of duty for not securing the southern border given the recent record number of undocumented immigrant encounters.

“Having exhausted all other options to hold Secretary Mayorkas accountable, it is unmistakably clear that Congress must exercise its constitutional duty and impeach him,” Green posted on X on Sunday.

This is not a surprise. The question is: Will Green also push for action on providing the president authority to better secure the border?

This is a both/and situation as there is an imperative from the public to demand accountability while also doing everything possible to protect United States’ interests.

Those interests include securing the border and also passing needed reforms to modernize a broken system.

Recent history shows that partisan politics will dictate that only one of these can be done at a time, but that is a disservice to the American public.

Congress − and Green, in particular, as a chairman and House leader − should rise above to try.

Counterpoint: Marsha Blackburn: Why Republicans unlike Democrats stand for the rule of law at the border

Don’t waste momentum on a bipartisan immigration deal

Immigration is a top domestic political issues for Americans, according to recent polling from USA TODAY and Suffolk University.

House legislation passed in 2023 appears to have no future in the Senate. A Senate bipartisan deal, which recently emerged, is favored by President Joe Biden, but it appears to be “dead-on-arrival” in the House at the urging for former President and 2024 presidential candidate Donald Trump.

But this is shortsighted.

On Sunday’s “Face the Nation” television program on CBS, Sen. James Lankford, R-Oklahoma, discussed the pros of the deal, saying while it would benefit Biden, it would also benefit Trump should he win in November.

“So if he (Trump) were to be president, this would be new authorities that he had actually asked for when he was president before,” Lankford told host Margaret Brennan.

Lankford’s good faith efforts, however, were punished by the Oklahoma Republican Party, which censured him Sunday.

Characterized falsely as “open border deal,” the censure resolution shows this is purely about politics, not achieving results for the benefit of the American public.

Mayorkas impeachment saga will result in political theater

The last time a Cabinet secretary was impeached was in 1876 in the Ulysses Grant administration. Secretary of War William Belknap was accused of financial impropriety. He was impeached in the House, though he was acquitted in the Senate because the necessary two-thirds vote threshold was not met, according to the U.S. Senate’s website.

The slim House Republican majority assures that Mayorkas will be impeached, but the Senate will acquit him given the 50-50 Democratic-Republican makeup, making this an exercise in theatrics and rhetoric.

Critics of Mayorkas’ potential impeachment raise the issues that the accusations against him may be more about policy disagreements that fail to meet the “high crimes and misdemeanors” impeachment standard.

On Sunday, The Wall Street Journal published a guest opinion column by President George W. Bush’s Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff advocating against impeaching his successor.

While he acknowledged that he has disagreements with the Biden administration, Chertoff also contested Republican claims about an open border.

“Since Mr. Mayorkas took office, the majority of migrants encountered at the Southwest border have been removed, returned or expelled ... The truth is that our national immigration system is outdated, and DHS leaders under both parties have done their best to manage our immigration system without adequate congressional support," he wrote.

Congress must do more than blame the Biden administration and must act if border security really is the crisis politicians claim it is.

Inaction now seems like dereliction of duty.

Mark Green has the chance to show the nation that Congress can do two very important things at the same time.

David Plazas is the director of opinion and engagement for the USA TODAY Network Tennessee. He is an editorial board member of The Tennessean. He hosts the Tennessee Voices videocast and curates the Tennessee Voices and Latino Tennessee Voices newsletters. Call him at (615) 259-8063, email him at dplazas@tennessean.com or tweet to him at @davidplazas.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Mayorkas impeachment, bipartisan border deal are both possible