Republicans moving ‘strongest border security package’ in history to House floor
Anna Giaritelli
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House Republican leadership is pushing a massive border security and immigration bill to the floor for a vote in the coming weeks, determined to end the burgeoning border crisis.
TEXAS STATE TROOPERS DEPLOYED BY ABBOTT TO BORDER STOPPED 8,721 HUMAN SMUGGLERS
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana declared that the 20 bills that three GOP-run committees have passed will be compiled into the “strongest border security package that Congress has ever taken” up.
“We’re going to bring a border security package and pass it through this House of Representatives. And we challenge President Biden to work with us to solve this problem,” Scalise said.
Republicans finally coalesced around a package of bills that successfully made it through the House Homeland Security, Judiciary, and Foreign Affairs Committees this month after three months of infighting, primarily among several Texas lawmakers.
Judiciary and Homeland Security lawmakers conducted marathon markups of their immigration and border security bills, respectively, this and last week.
The forthcoming package of bills, which has yet to be named, will hit the House floor on May 11, the same day that the Biden administration will end a pandemic policy that impacted border operations.
The Department of Homeland Security is bracing for potentially 13,000 to 18,000 illegal immigrant arrests per day when the Title 42 policy goes away, far beyond the 5,000 to 7,000 daily apprehensions the U.S. has seen since President Joe Biden took office.
“Day one, he halted construction of the wall. He terminated the Remain in Mexico policy, ended agreements with Northern Triangle countries, and Joe Biden sent a message that America’s borders open and millions of people answered that call and started coming across our border illegally,” Scalise said.
House Homeland Security Chairman Mark Green of Tennessee pointed to 89 related policies from previous administrations that the Biden administration had done away with and he says triggered the ongoing mass migration event.
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The United States is not the only country in the Western Hemisphere facing record-high illegal immigration, with more than 5 million attempted unlawful crossings tracked since 2021 in the United States. Mexico and Colombia, among others, have seen more migrants seeking refuge over the past two years as many people are free to leave their homes after coronavirus lockdown restrictions and economic downturns have devastated some regions.
House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan of Ohio pointed to the 350,000 unaccompanied children who have been apprehended at the border crossing alone over the past two years as being one of the greatest scourges of the border crisis.