At the Urging of FAIR and Coalition Partners, House GOP Leadership Added Border Security Provisions to Government Funding Measure
FAIR and a broad coalition of public interest groups and former high-ranking immigration enforcement officials sent a letter to congressional leaders, on September 14, urging that border security provisions be attached to any measure approved to keep the federal government funded beyond the end of the fiscal year, which ended on September 30. Less than a week later, the House Republican leadership responded by including nearly all of the provisions of H.R. 2, the Secure the Border Act, in a Continuing Resolution (CR).
H.R. 2 was approved by the House of Representatives on May 11, but the Senate has failed to act on this critical legislation to secure our nation’s borders. Since then, the unprecedented border crisis touched-off by Biden administration policies has only grown worse, compromising our nation’s security and threatening the solvency, safety and stability of communities all across the country.
As the coalition letter pointed out, “Enacting a CR without demanding change would result in the continuation of funding and policies put in place by the disastrous FY 2023 omnibus, which has given the Biden administration the ability to ‘manage’ a never-ending, self-inflicted crisis by allowing it to entice, guide, process, transport, house, and provide social services to even more illegal aliens.”
The House-drafted CR responded to these concerns by setting explicit conditions aimed at ending the Biden Border Crisis. These included resuming border wall construction; closing gaping loopholes in our asylum policies; ending wholesale catch-and-release practices; preventing the surge of unaccompanied children to our borders; and reining in the Biden administration’s abuse of parole authority to allow inadmissible aliens to gain entry and work in the United States – all of which were part of H.R. 2.