U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan, a Champaign County Republican, tours a section of the U.S. border near Yuma, AZ, with members of the House Judiciary Committee.
Sabrina Eaton | cleveland.com (TNS)
WASHINGTON, D. C. – After months of behind-the-scenes dickering, Republicans who control the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday adopted a 213-page border security bill, even as large numbers of immigrants surged into the United States on the day covid-related immigration restrictions expired.
The bill, which passed by a 219-213 margin, was a combination of proposals assembled by the House Judiciary Committee, chaired by Champaign County Republican Jim Jordan, as well as the Foreign Affairs and Homeland Security committees. Jordan and other members of his committee spent several days along Arizona’s border with Mexico to gather ideas for their legislation.
Advocates of the bill said it would force the Biden administration to restart construction of the border wall, increase the number of Border Patrol agents and provide bonus pay, deploy more security technology to the southern and northern borders, end “catch and release,” and strengthen and streamline the asylum process.
In a speech on the House of Representatives floor, Jordan called the legislation “the strongest immigration enforcement legislation in modern times.” Among other things, he said, it would require employers to use the E-verify system to establish workers’ eligibility to work in the United States, increase penalties on those who overstay their visas, and strengthen current law to protect unaccompanied children from human trafficking.
He said the best part of the bill was its requirement that prospective immigrants be detained or required to leave the country while their asylum claims are adjudicated.
“We changed the incentive,” Jordan said. “If you don’t do that, you never solve this problem …. Let’s hope the Senate will take up this bill after we pass it, because this is the only thing that will help stop the craziness, the craziness that now, for 28 months, has been going on on our southern border.”
House Democrats voted against the bill, with House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York denouncing it as “the Child Deportation Act.” He accused Republicans of trying “to weaponize and politicize the border as opposed to doing something meaningful about it.
“This extreme MAGA Republican piece of legislation will throw out children who are fleeing in many cases extreme violence and persecution,” said Jeffries. “It will build a medieval border wall that is a 14th-century solution to a 21st-century problem and waste billions of taxpayer dollars. And it will adversely impact the ability of the Customs and Border Patrol agency to do its job in stopping dangerous drugs like fentanyl from coming into our country.”
U.S. Rep. Emilia Sykes, an Akron Democrat, said her district is home to 39,231 immigrants from across the globe. She released a statement that said the GOP bill “would greatly exacerbate an already dire situation at the border.
“Instead, I am committed to passing a bipartisan, comprehensive solution that ensures our borders are secure, keeps out dangerous drugs and weapons, keeps children and families together, and strengthens our economy while centering the humanity of immigrant communities,” her statement said.
The bill has little chance for passage in the Democrat-controlled U.S. Senate. President Joe Biden has pledged a veto, arguing that it would worsen the immigration system and make immigrant processing less efficient. A statement from the Office of Management and Budget said it “does nothing to address the root causes of migration, reduces humanitarian protections, and restricts lawful pathways, which are critical alternatives to unlawful entry.”
“The bill would cut off nearly all access to humanitarian protections in ways that are inconsistent with our Nation’s values and international obligations,” the statement said. “Because this bill does very little to actually increase border security while doing a great deal to trample on the Nation’s core values and international obligations, it should be rejected.”
When asked about the Republican bill on Wednesday, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Cleveland Democrat, said he wasn’t paying much attention to it, although he is paying close attention to what is happening at the U.S. border. He said he’ll cosponsor legislation that would would extend for another two years a coronavirus emergency health policy known as Title 42 that was used to keep millions of migrants from entering the United States. The policy stems from Title 42 of a 1944 law that permits migration curbs to protect public health.
Brown said he thinks presidents from both parties have failed to secure the border.
“We need more resources at the border,” Brown continued. “That means everything from military people at the border, police at the border, inspectors at the border, mental health professionals at the border to deal with this situation. It’s troubling.”
Ohio Republicans denounced Biden’s border policy as a fiasco.
U.S. Rep. Max Miller, a Rocky River Republican, said the southern border “is in crisis,” estimating that 5 million people crossed illegally since Biden became president, as did many pounds of fentanyl, and dozens of people on the terror watch list.
“This crisis is the direct result of the Biden administration’s failed policies,” he continued on the House of Representatives floor, accusing Biden of taking 94 executive actions when he took office to “reverse the progress made under Republican leadership.”
U.S. Rep. Dave Joyce, a South Russell Republican who chairs an appropriations subcommittee that funds the Department of Homeland Security, said there’s an “unprecedented crisis at the southwest border, and this Administration is refusing to take necessary actions to address it.” A statement from Joyce called the bill a “first step in securing our border.”
A statement from U.S. Rep. Bob Latta, a Bowling Green Republican, said Ohio communities are paying the price for the “out of control” crisis at the border, with cartels having “free rein to conduct human and child trafficking and smuggle lethal drugs – like fentanyl – into our communities.”
U.S. Rep. Warren Davidson, a Miami County Republican who serves on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the legislation “should have gone a little further to stop the evil work of cartels,” but he’d support it.
“Joe Biden’s border crisis has become a nationwide crime scene,” Davidson said on the House of Representatives floor. “Cartels not only control the illegal drug market, they control our border. They’re poisoning our country and exploiting every migrant who crosses our southern border. This sad crisis must end.”
A statement from the White House said the Pentagon prepared for the end of Title 42 by sending 1,500 troops to support Border Patrol and support a massive counter-smuggling operation in the Darien Gap, a stretch of jungle between Panama and Colombia that’s often traversed by migrants to the United States.
The statement said the Department of Homeland Security is expanding detention capacity, surging resources and technology to support border communities, and deploying hundreds more asylum officers and immigration judges to quickly and humanely process migrants. In addition, it said the State Department is opening Regional Processing Centers across the Western Hemisphere to direct migrants to lawful pathways and reduce unlawful immigration.
It said that when Title 42 ends, “individuals who unlawfully cross the U.S. Southwest border will be processed in a matter of days, barred from reentry for at least five years if ordered removed, and would be presumed ineligible for asylum under a proposed regulation, absent an applicable exception.”
