AMAC Exclusive – By Shane Harris
President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats are once again attempting to pin blame on Republicans for a crisis they created, this time by blasting House and Senate conservatives for refusing to back a “border security” bill that would make the border worse.
Shortly after the Senate unveiled a $118 billion bill to supposedly “overhaul” immigration policy on February 4, House Speaker Mike Johnson declared that the legislation would be “dead on arrival” if it ever reached the House. “I’ve seen enough,” Johnson said in a statement on X. “This bill is even worse than we expected, and won’t come close to ending the border catastrophe the President has created. As the lead Democrat negotiator proclaimed: Under this legislation, ‘the border never closes.’”
Notably, $60 billion of that total will go to security assistance for Ukraine, while $14 billion will go to Israel and $10 billion will go to “humanitarian aid” for Gaza. Only $20.2 billion is actually labeled for border security—and much of the funding designated as “border security” would in fact be used to process illegal aliens and release them into the United States. In other words, Congress would be appropriating more than three times more money for the security of foreign countries than for the security of the United States.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise confirmed that the legislation would not receive a vote in the House. “Here’s what the people pushing this ‘deal’ aren’t telling you,” the Louisiana lawmaker said. “It accepts 5,000 illegal immigrants a day and gives automatic work permits to asylum recipients—a magnet for more illegal immigration.”
Indeed, the legislation would explicitly allow the Biden administration to continue admitting up to 5,000 illegal aliens every single day before turning anyone away – for a total of more than 1.8 million people per year.
But Scalise’s comments barely scratch the surface of the problems with the bill.
For starters, while proponents of the legislation suggest that it would crack down on illegal immigration by placing daily limits on admissions and stiffening asylum requirements, the bill also includes a provision which states: “If the President finds that it is in the national interest to temporarily suspend the border emergency authority, the President may direct the Secretary [of Homeland Security] to suspend use of the border emergency authority on an emergency basis.” In other words, Biden or any other president can unilaterally ignore every border security measure contained in the bill simply by claiming that it is in “the national interest” to do so.
As Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton posted on X, the bill also gives DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas – who is currently facing an impeachment vote in the House – virtually unlimited authority to grant asylum to illegal aliens (the first step toward a green card and citizenship), “codifies catch-and-release under so-called ‘alternatives to detention’ for any alien who says they intend to apply for asylum or another protection,” “gives immediate work permits to everyone who says they want asylum,” and “grants 50,000 extra green cards per year for no apparent reason.”
As several Republican lawmakers have noted, the bill’s significant expansion of the Biden administration’s authority to quickly grant asylum claims will allow the White House to claim that it has “solved” the border crisis merely by declaring that everyone who crossed the border illegally is now here legally.
Moreover, the bill would hand $1.4 billion to immigration-related non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and nonprofits. As AMAC Newsline reported in January, many of these groups are actively facilitating the border crisis under the guise of offering “humanitarian assistance” to migrants, including by offering illegal aliens advice and assistance in evading existing U.S. immigration laws.
In addition, the bill would exempt families from detention requirements, further incentivizing human smuggling operations to pair minors with single adults – a practice that has led to horrific suffering for vulnerable migrant children.
As even CNN admitted, “It’s unlikely that the deal could take immediate effect even if it were passed, as it would require an immense number of resources, including the hiring of additional personnel, which often takes months.” This means that Biden and Democrats could claim victory on the border while continuing to allow unprecedented numbers of people to cross the border illegally. Moreover, the bill would be in effect until 2029 – meaning that if former President Donald Trump were to win this November, he would be bound by whatever is in it.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump offered perhaps the best summary of the bill: “The ridiculous ‘Border Bill’ is nothing more than a highly sophisticated trap for Republicans to assume the blame [for] what the Radical Left Democrats have done to our Border, just in time for our most important EVER Election. Don’t fall for it!”
The bill is a product of negotiations between Senate Democrats and a small group of Senate Republicans led by James Lankford of Oklahoma. While Lankford has in the past been by and large a principled conservative, in this case he appears to have been had by his Democrat colleagues.
Democrats and the corporate media have predictably attacked Republican opposition to the bill as evidence that the GOP has no interest in actually solving the border crisis and instead only wants to take advantage of it as a 2024 campaign issue. Biden has accused Republicans of wanting to “keep playing politics with the border,” while the Huffington Post declared Republicans are “going ballistic over bipartisan border bill they demanded.”
It is currently unclear if the bill can even clear the Senate’s 60-vote threshold for passage, with some Democrats also expressing their opposition. Even if it does, however, House Republican leadership has made clear that they have no intention of bringing it up for a vote. Their position remains that the Senate must pass H.R.-2, a far more robust border security package that does not give the Biden administration any loopholes to avoid enforcement.
The next major question will be how both parties spin this debacle from a public relations perspective. Democrats have successfully cornered Republicans into blocking a bill that has the ostensible veneer of doing something about the border. It will now be up to the GOP and their conservative allies in the media to make clear to the American people that the bill would actually be a disaster for the country, and that change in leadership is needed for real progress on the border crisis.
Shane Harris is a writer and political consultant from Southwest Ohio. You can follow him on Twitter @ShaneHarris513.
