Senate Resumes Border Negotiations, Speaker Johnson Leads Border Trip
FAIR Take | January 2024
Last week, Republican and Democrat negotiators in the Senate resumed talks on a border security package as part of the Biden Administration’s supplemental funding request. That funding request, along with billions in foreign aid to Ukraine and Israel, includes roughly $14 billion to help Homeland Security quickly process and release more illegal aliens into the U.S., but contains no real policy changes that would actually stop the flow of illegal migrants.
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas again joined Senate negotiators last week. According to reports, Mayorkas met with Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Lankford (R-Okla.) Tuesday afternoon. Following the meeting, Sinema asserted that they are “closing in” on a final package, saying that a deal could come as soon as this week. Negotiators have so far been tight-lipped, and have not made any of the proposed policy changes public. However, any deal without meaningful border security provisions will face a steep uphill climb in the House, where Republican leadership is continuing to push for the FAIR-supported H.R. 2, the Secure the Border Act.
In the House, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) led a congressional delegation last week of more than 60 Republicans to Eagle Pass, Texas to highlight the border crisis. As part of that trip, the delegation toured a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) facility and heard firsthand accounts of the crisis there from federal and state officials. The Speaker said in a press conference that evening, “The House has done its job…we’ve delivered commonsense legislation that will secure our border, but it’s been sitting on Chuck Schumer’s desk for seven months. H.R. 2 was our bill and the time to act on it is yesterday.”
For his part, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has continued to criticize Republican demands for H.R. 2 as partisan. He responded to Speaker Johnson’s border trip by saying, “I think if the Senate gets something done in a bipartisan way, it will put enormous pressure on the House to get something done as well, and not just to let these hard-right people get up and … dictate how the whole country should work.” That same day, the leading Republican negotiator in the Senate, James Lankford, said on the latest round of negotiations, “H.R. 2 is a great bill, obviously, but I’m negotiating with a White House that vehemently disagrees and has already said they are going to veto that, and a Democratic Senate.”
Further complicating the picture are looming deadlines to fund the federal government. The short-term Continuing Resolution passed last November faces its first deadline on January 19 and second deadline on February 2, at which time funding for DHS and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will end. With those deadlines fast approaching, Schumer may attempt to bundle Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 funding and the supplemental foreign aid package. Some Republicans have begun to focus on other spending bills as vehicles to force immigration policy changes, with Sen. Rick Scott (Fla.) saying last week that the border must be secured before anything is funded.
The spending showdown also comes with the House Homeland Security Committee preparing to open formal impeachment proceedings against Mayorkas for dereliction of duty. In an interview last week with Fox News, Mayorkas sidestepped questions on impeachment. He did, however, confirm that massive numbers of illegal aliens are released into the country. To that point, he said he would not be surprised if CBP were releasing three quarters of the illegal aliens crossing and that “well more than a million” are released every year. As FAIR has noted, continuing to negotiate with Mayorkas at this point, who faces impeachment, orchestrated the border crisis and undermines immigration enforcement at every turn, is nothing short of astonishing.
For the moment, however, Americans’ best hope for meaningful policy changes to stem the border crisis lies with the Senate. Last month, Senate Republicans blocked a key procedural vote to advance the foreign aid spending package without any border security measures. They now have an opportunity to build on that victory by standing firm and advocating for real policy changes. Now is perhaps the best opportunity to ensure reforms, like those in H.R. 2, are adopted to detain and remove illegal aliens, curb massive asylum fraud and stop unlimited parole authority. Now is the time to act. The American people cannot afford to wait any longer.
To learn more about H.R. 2, the Secure the Border Act, and how you can get involved, visit FAIR’s activist toolkit here.