The much-vaunted bipartisan border bill created in the Senate is hundreds of pages long, but it was barely released before House Republicans publicly rejected it.
Republicans and Democrats worked together to create the legislation in the Senate, and Senate Republicans are very proud of the terms, which include restrictions on the immigration policies commonly described as “catch and release,” rules about who can get a work permit, and how many immigrants can even be screened for asylum. House Republicans insist it does the opposite.
Did Lauren Boebert, for instance, read the full 370 pages of the bill before she began tweeting that it’s “370 pages of absolute trash” only hours after it was out, or is she merely following party lines?
Boebert calls it “amnesty,” but in fact it doesn’t make acquiring legal status any easier, though it does employ techniques to make screening faster, meaning those who don’t qualify for asylum (not “amnesty”) are sent back to countries of origin more quickly.
How about Steve Scalise, who said the bill won’t even get a vote in the House because it “accepts 5,000 illegal immigrants a day,” when what it actually does is authorize the Secretary of Defense to lock down asylum screenings after an average of 4,000 encounters, and requires it at the 5,000 mark.
“Encounters” doesn’t mean admissions — that includes everyone caught entering illegally and screened or turned back, and everyone appearing legally at a port of entry — and according to Senate Republicans, that would basically mean right away. According to an information sheet released by Senator James Lankford:
“When the average number of crossings exceeds 5,000 people a week (which it has every week but one in the past four months) everyone crossing illegally everyday is rapidly deported out of the country without an asylum screening.”
Once that average is reached (again, in other words, immediately) there’s a full-scale border shutdown until the number of encounters falls back under that average, and then can be kept in place for additional time as the secretary of defense sees fit. The bill lays out the type of interaction deemed an “encounter” as follows:
“[T]he average for the applicable 7-day period shall be calculated using ‘‘the sum of the number of encounters that occur between the southwest land border ports of entry of the United States; the number of encounters that occur between the ports of entry along the southern coastal borders; and the number of inadmissible aliens encountered at a southwest land border port of entry…divided by 7.”
Notice nothing in that wording suggests “accepting” the entry of any immigrants, much less requiring a certain number admitted before a shutdown.
Scalise also complains that the bill “gives automatic work permits to asylum recipients,” which he then conflates with illegal immigrants, but the information sheet argues that in fact, the legislation will reduce the handout of work permits. So, what does the legislation say?
It lays out the individuals who can obtain a work permit as someone who “receives a
positive protection determination,” under several sets of circumstances. In plain language, that’s someone who is being granted asylum — someone who fits the regulations to be allowed to live in the U.S., or while “the outcome of the protection merits interview is under administrative or judicial review.”
If at any point the immigrant is determined not to qualify for asylum, the work status is revoked.
The bill increases the number of deportation flights and their frequency, it shuts down the border at a set number of encounters (not admissions), it increases the speed of processing — other than the fact that it’s happening while Joe Biden is president, what is there really for Republicans to dislike?
