Harris’s “Tough” Border Bill Mandates Illegal Immigration

Vice President Harris has promised to pass a failed Senate border bill that requires the government to release at least 1,400 inadmissible aliens into the country every day. 

Fourteen hundred releases per day works out to more than 500,000 per year. That would be the floor for illegal immigration under the Harris-backed bill.

The “reform” in this legislation isn’t aimed at reducing illegal immigration. The bill that Harris supports would make the catch-and-release policies of the Biden-Harris administration – fueled by their abuse of parole powers – established law.

The bill also authorizes the president to automatically grant work permits to aliens entering illegally, and expands green cards by 50,000 per year for five years.

Related: Fact sheet: Murphy Border Supplemental; Full text; Senate Immigration Deal Fails to Measure Up Against Barbara Jordan’s Credibility Yardstick (2/6/2024); Senate Border Bill Codifies Biden Border Policies (2/5/2024)

A destructive bipartisan effort

As Jared reports, it was Republican Senators Mitch McConnell and James Lankford who “crafted a border bill that turns destructive Biden policies into the law of the land.” Majority Leader Schumer planned on bringing their bill to the floor. A funny thing happened when the bill was released: the public read it. The public opposed it. The bill was effectively dead within hours.

Before the text was released, the buzz was that President Biden was eager to sign this “tough” border bill, that would give him “new” emergency powers to “shut down the border.” But when the text was released, the bill itself told a different story.

The backlash was so severe that when Leader Schumer ultimately did bring the bill to the floor, Sen. Lankford himself voted against it.

Trump didn’t kill the bill — YOU did.

The bill’s supporters in politics and media continue to falsely claim that it was Trump’s opposition that killed the bill within hours of its release. In fact, the bill was doomed by its own language, available for every voter to judge with their own “lying eyes.”

More resources for processing

It’s an old trick in Washington to call for more border funding and more border agents without tying those things to any policy that would allow those additional resources to credibly enforce immigration law. Such is the case with the Harris-backed bill. Without changes to the Biden-Harris policies, the Harris-backed bill would accelerate the border crisis.

The Biden-Harris approach: More illegal immigration; fewer visuals

Whatever their motivations, the policies of the Biden-Harris administration have consistently been aimed at making illegal immigration less chaotic (and less visible). The Harris-backed bill is consistent with that approach, funneling more resources to “process” inadmissible aliens in an orderly manner.

Gaslighting

Supporters of the Harris-backed bill continue to hope that enough Americans won’t read the bill. President Biden used his State of the Union address to reiterate false claims.

Harris is now campaigning on those same false claims: