GOP Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma, Independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut have reportedly agreed on legislation to end the migrant surge that has overrun federal authorities over the past several months.
The Senate deal, which is expected to be unveiled as soon as next week, would grant new emergency authority for the Department of Homeland Security to shut down the border if daily average migrant encounters reach 4,000 over a one-week span. If migrant crossings increase above 5,000 on average per day on a given week, DHS would be required to close the border to migrants crossing illegally not entering at ports of entry.
Moreover, if crossings exceed 8,500 in a single day, DHS would be required to close the border to migrants illegally crossing. Under the proposal, any migrant who tries to cross the border twice while it is closed would be banned from entering the US for one year.
In December alone, there were over 300,000 migrant encounters. If the new legislation were in effect, the border would be shut down now to illegal migrants.
In a rare statement on the ongoing congressional negotiations, President Biden reacted to the deal that the trio of Senate negotiators have worked toward.
"What's been negotiated would – if passed into law – be the toughest and fairest set of reforms to secure the border we've ever had in our country," he said. "It would give me, as President, a new emergency authority to shut down the border when it becomes overwhelmed. And if given that authority, I would use it the day I sign the bill into law."
But House Speaker Mike Johnson has already called the compromise on border and immigration policy "dead on arrival," claiming it doesn't go far enough because that's what Donald Trump has told him to say.
This is proof positive that House Republicans aren't serious about solving the crisis at the U.S. southern border. Instead, they have shown that their true intent is escalate illegal border crossings to give Trump ammunition to keep blaming Joe Biden all the way to Election Day.
They don't care about doing what's best for the country.
Thousands of migrants have been sleeping in poorly heated tents set up by New York City on Randall's Island, on sports fields where the Harlem and East rivers meet. In Chicago, new arrivals have been forced to hunker down in libraries, police stations, airports and even parked city buses until shelter space frees up. This is all because Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has bussed most of them from the border directly to Democratic-led cities. Why? To create chaos in those cities and make illegal immigration a political problem for Biden.
Now, with a bipartisan solution in their hands, House Republicans are prepared to sabotage it to advance a sinister plot laid bare for all of us and the world to see.
Poll after poll shows immigration is a key issue for Republican voters and is of growing concern to Democrats. If this legislation fails, Republican voters have their own representatives in Congress and Donald Trump to blame.