A second Republican breaks with party on House GOP border security bill
Reese Gorman
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Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) will be voting against House Republicans’ sweeping border security bill, citing concerns with the electronic verification of work authorization provisions in the bill.
The immigration bill, HR 2, would reimplement former President Donald Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” program, end catch-and-release policies at the border, restart construction of the border wall, and mandate electronic verification of work authorization through a system called E-Verify.
TITLE 42 ENDING: BIDEN SLAMMED BY FELLOW DEMOCRATS BEFORE BORDER POLICY DEADLINE
A Massie spokesperson confirmed to the Washington Examiner that the Kentucky Republican would not be voting for the bill because of those E-Verify provisions. In a tweet on Sunday, Massie compared the E-Verify provisions to COVID-19 vaccine mandates.
“Republicans are about to make a huge mistake,” Massie tweeted. “Biden forced millions of Americans to take VACCINES by threatening their JOBS, and turning EMPLOYERS into enforcers. Imagine giving Biden the ultimate on/off switch for EMPLOYMENT called E-verify. Might as well call it V-verify.”
A source close to Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-WA) said the congressman also has concerns about the E-Verify provisions and is working with leadership to ensure those concerns are noted.
Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) has also said he would be voting against the bill because it doesn’t address the drug cartels.
In an interview with the Washington Examiner in late April, Crenshaw called the bill “crazy” and said he “cannot take a border bill seriously that doesn’t address the cartels.”
“It doesn’t talk about the cartels,” he told the Washington Examiner. “So the people who have operational control of the border, the people who are killing 80,000 Americans a year by trafficking fentanyl through the border, are completely unaddressed in this bill. This is something we’ve brought up to leadership many times over the past few months as they’ve gone over this.”
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) told Axios the bill would be brought up for a vote on Thursday.
Scalise has called the bill the “strongest border security package that Congress has ever taken” up.
Spokespeople for Scalise and Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) did not respond to a request for comment.
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Earlier Monday, President Joe Biden said he would veto the border bill if it made it to his desk, though that scenario is unlikely with a Democratic-controlled Senate.
The push for the bill comes as Title 42, the pandemic-era immigration policy that allowed the government to expel immigrants without an asylum hearing, is set to end.