Senate border bill fails again under bipartisan opposition, paving way for Biden executive action
The Senate failed for the second time this year to pass a sweeping US border security and immigration bill, with some Democrats and most Republicans opposing the legislation.
The upper chamber voted 50-43 Thursday to procedurally tank the measure, which unlike its predecessor had not received bipartisan support ahead of its consideration.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) acknowledged earlier this week that he didn’t expect full support from his caucus — but blamed Republicans and former President Donald Trump for killing the first attempt.
“We know that the status quo at the southern border is unacceptable,” Schumer (D-NY) said in a floor speech before the vote.
“If Republicans were truly serious about calling the situation at the border an emergency, they shouldn’t delay any longer.”
“Congressional Republicans do not care about securing the border or fixing America’s broken immigration system. If they did, they would have voted for the toughest border enforcement in history,” President Biden said in a statement after the vote.
“By blocking the bipartisan border agreement, Republicans in Congress said no to legislation that would hire more Border Patrol Agents, add more immigration judges and asylum officers to process cases in months and not years,” he added.
“They said no to new technology to detect and stop fentanyl from entering the United States, and no to resources to go after drug traffickers. They rejected an agreement that would give me, as president, a new emergency authority to temporarily shut down the border when the system is overwhelmed.”
But two of the lead negotiators on the initial bill — Republican James Lankford of Oklahoma and independent Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona — panned Democrats for their “political theater” in trying to ram through the “prop” measure.
“Today is not a bill,” Lankford said in a floor speech.
“Today is a political messaging exercise. Today is an opportunity to be able to have a vote that’s sitting out there so people can send fundraising emails out later tonight and say, ‘Look I tried to do something,’ when no work was actually done.”
Lankford, Sinema, and Sens. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) Susan Collins (R-Maine), Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Laphonza Butler (D-Calif.) all voted against the legislation.
“After more than three years of claiming the situation at our southern border was not a crisis while millions of illegals poured in, Congressional Democrats are attempting to throw an election year Hail Mary to cover for their embrace of President Biden’s open border policies,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said.
“In the absence of a substantive legislative solution, Senator Schumer should join House Republicans in demanding President Biden reverse course and use his executive authority to finally secure the border and protect American families.”
With the bill’s failure, the Biden administration will be able to move forward on several reported executive actions on border security — despite the president claiming earlier this year he lacked the authority to do so.
“I’ve done all I can do. Just give me the power. I’ve asked from the very day I got into office,” Biden, 81, said in January.
“Give me the Border Patrol, give me the people, the judges — give me the people who can stop this and make it work right.”
Johnson fired back at Biden on X at the time, “That is simply untrue. He’s either lying or misinformed,” before going on to list “authorities at his disposal” to restrict entries, expedite removals and mandate detentions for migrants.
Biden, 81, is fighting an uphill battle for his re-election against Trump, 77, as nationwide polls have consistently shown immigration as a top concern and the former president as the favored candidate to handle the border crisis.
A record-breaking number of migrants have entered the US every year since Biden took office, with his administration slowly rolling back Trump-era policies like “Remain in Mexico,” which forced asylum seekers to remain south of the border before their immigration court hearings.
The administration is preparing an executive action on one of the authorities highlighted by Johnson, Section 212 (f), to grant the president the power to temporarily “suspend” the overwhelming number of migrant entries, NBC News reported Thursday.
Earlier this month, a source close to the White House also told The Post that Biden was planning an executive order to shut down the US-Mexico border once migrant crossings reach 4,000 per day.
“Almost every day this year, we’ve had more than 5,000 people illegally crossing,” Lankford said Thursday.
“To be clear, this year we’ll have two and a half million people that illegally crossed the border.”
But with the same federal laws in place under former President Barack Obama — whose Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said that 1,000 daily crossings “overwhelms the system” — around half as many crossings occurred per year, Lankford noted.
“I have presented to [Biden], myself, [Vice President Kamala] Harris, a list of at least eight statutory authorities that he has had since the day he walked in the Oval Office,” Johnson said Thursday on Fox News’ “The Faulkner Focus.”
“Now remember, we documented 64 specific executive actions that President Biden and his administrators including [Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro] Mayorkas, who we had to impeach in the House because of this, they intentionally took these actions to open the border wide,” he added.
“They did this by design, and that’s what’s so terrible about it. He’s had executive authority every day to reverse what he’s done, but he refuses to use it.”
Executive branch agencies have floated other orders and finalized federal rules to speed up the asylum process in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and New York City.
Many of the proposals originated in provisions of the Senate’s bipartisan border bill.
Asked Wednesday about the president’s inaction so far, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre deflected.
“Why should he have to do it unilaterally?” she retorted.
“Why shouldn’t we do it in a legislative way?”
