Members of the Senate unveiled a new bill that would enact border policies enshrining 5,000 illegal crossings per day alongside additional aid packages for Ukraine and Israel, a deal which House Republican leadership denounced.
Oklahoma Republican Senator James Lankford, Connecticut Democratic Senator Chris Murphy, and Arizona Independent Senator Kyrsten Sinema had spent several months negotiating the details of the legislation, which seeks to compromise between calls for renewed foreign assistance and for securing the southern border. Beyond allocating $60 billion for Ukraine and $14 billion for Israel, the bill earmarks $20 billion for border security measures.
The legislation contains provisions that would allow for 5,000 illegal aliens to cross the border every day before the “mandatory activation” of a border emergency, yet President Joe Biden would be able to “suspend the border emergency authority” if he finds that such a course of action would be “in the national interest.”
In addition to permitting some 1.8 million illegal aliens to enter the nation annually, the bill would allow them to receive work authorizations amid judicial proceedings about their asylum claims.
Lankford said in a statement that the bill would “put a huge number of new enforcement tools in the hands of a future administration and push the current administration to finally stop the illegal flow” of aliens across the border. The measure was introduced to the public even after Oklahoma Republicans said that they “resoundingly approved” a resolution condemning Lankford for the negotiations and cautioning that “until Senator Lankford ceases from these actions, the Oklahoma Republican Party will cease all support for him.”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican from Kentucky, meanwhile remarked that lawmakers “must carefully consider the opportunity in front of us and prepare to act,” while House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, said that the measure was “even worse than we expected” and would be “dead on arrival” in the lower chamber.
The controversy over border policy occurs as the state of Texas and the Biden administration clash over illegal immigration. Texas officials assumed control of Shelby Park, a public park next to the Rio Grande, preventing federal agents from entering the nearly three-mile stretch of the border. Five members of the Supreme Court granted an emergency request from the Biden administration to remove razor wire in the area, after which Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott said he would defend the “constitutional authority to secure the border.”