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NumbersUSA stands strongly against the so-called Senate “Border Deal” because it increases legal immigration and fails to do anything to make the border secure. Despite recent polling that show sensible immigration and a secure border are priorities for voters of both parties, the Senate proposal codifies into law illegal immigration minimums of over 500,000 per year, increases legal immigration by over 50,000 each year, and handcuffs future administrations from reversing the Biden administration’s open border policies. Furthermore, no provisions from the House-passed H.R. 2, the Secure Border Act, are included in the Senate proposal. In short, the Senate proposal is only a deal for would-be illegal border crossers and fraudulent asylum seekers. It is a deal for those illegal aliens seeking easy entry to the United States.
On the illegal immigration front, the Senate Border bill requires the processing of at least 500,000 and up to 1.8M illegal encounters per year into the United States. It gives instant work permits to asylum seekers. It fails to end abuse of humanitarian parole. It fails to address loopholes associated with unaccompanied children, encouraging child smuggling and trafficking while rewarding cartels.
On the legal side of immigration, the Senate Border bill adds 50,000 green cards each year for 5 years adding 250,000 additional immigrants in just 5 years. It grants indefinite work authorization for adult children of H-1Bs. It includes green cards for paroled Afghans, something repeatedly not passed due to the lack of ability to vet these people effectively. It adds 10,000 more special immigrant visas, something unnecessary to address the translators and other true supporters of the United States who have been successfully processed with the 3 previous SIV visa categories.
As for the much-acclaimed power to close the border, the President already has such authority. What the Senate Border bill does is normalize illegal immigration up to 1.8 million per year by establishing a border emergency authority which requires there be to 5,000 average illegal crossers over a consecutive seven-day period or 8,500 in a single day, with optional authority triggering at 4,000 a day average over 7 days. This is an authority that the President can choose to turn off if he wants, is limited to a set amount of days per year, and expires completely after 3 years. Finally, any alien can be exempted from expulsion based on the “totality of the circumstance,” a case-by-case authority which the Biden administration has repeatedly abused by applying to whole classes of people from specific countries.
The cost of this border bill atrocity is that an additional $1.4B is provided to NGOs to support the processing of the up to 1.8M illegal immigrants each year, and $2.3B goes to HHS for, among other things, lawyers for the unaccompanied children who will continue to surge at the border due to gaping loopholes left by this law.
