By Earlier in the week, the Senate released its long-awaited “immigration deal” that pairs roughly $20 billion for border security for $60 billion in Ukraine funding, along with money for Israel’s defense.
Although there was pushback from conservatives almost immediately upon its release, supporters of the bill appeared to get a massive endorsement last night when the main union for Border Patrol agents announced that it would be backing the proposal.
Fox News reported, “The National Border Patrol Council tells Fox News that it supports the controversial bipartisan Senate border deal released Sunday ahead of an expected vote in the upper chamber later this week.
In a statement to Fox News, NBPC said it supported and endorsed the deal negotiated in the Senate. While acknowledging it was not perfect, the union said it was ‘far better than the status quo.’ Still, the union stopped short of endorsing the rest of the spending in the bill.
According to NBPC, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has averaged more than 6,700 apprehensions per day since President Joe Biden has been in office. The vast majority of these have been released under a policy known as ‘catch-and-release.’
NBPC says the Border Act of 2024 will give Border Patrol agents an authority that they never had in the past, including removing ‘single adults expeditiously and without a lengthy judicial review, which historically has required the release of these individuals into the interior of the U.S.'”
Now, the union’s membership is saying not so fast.
The Daily Caller writes:
Several rank-and-file Border Patrol agents criticized the Senate funding bill released late Sunday, telling the Daily Caller News Foundation that the legislation would allow the illegal immigration crisis to continue.
The Emergency National Security Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2024 allocates funding toward adding more personnel to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), detention beds to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities, expelling certain illegal migrants and enhancing fentanyl interdiction. Four rank-and-file Border Patrol agents told the DCNF that the “catch and release” of illegal immigrants will continue if the bill is implemented, because it allows for the release of family units and single adults that show a credible fear of persecution should they return home.
“Now that I’ve seen more of it, they can respectfully go fuck themselves. The more I’m seeing the more it just puts what they’ve been doing in writing. You want to shut this down, it’s real easy. Team up [the Department of Defense] with DHS and let us enforce like we were supposed to,” one agent told the DCNF.
“I feel like we are the only nation in the world that is this dumb about the border. Maybe it’s because we haven’t,” the agent added.
While much of the focus was on the Senate, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson’s reaction to the bill gave a clear message about the chances of the new bill becoming law–slim to none.
“In a scathing new statement Sunday night,” reported ABC News, “House Speaker Mike Johnson said the Senate bipartisan bill to overhaul the immigration system along with providing aid to Israel and Ukraine was dead on arrival if it makes it to the House.
‘I’ve seen enough. This bill is even worse than we expected, and won’t come close to ending the border catastrophe the President has created. As the lead Democrat negotiator proclaimed: Under this legislation, “the border never closes.’ If this bill reaches the House, it will be dead on arrival,’ Johnson said in a statement on X, echoing comments he made before the bill’s release.
Johnson’s statement comes just hours after the text of the bill dropped. The Senate spent months working in a bipartisan manner to come to a deal on a national security supplemental plan.”
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise took to Twitter to reaffirm the Speaker, saying that the bill, which would allow for 5,000 undocumented migrants to enter the United States daily would not be getting support in the House.
Let me be clear: The Senate Border Bill will NOT receive a vote in the House.
Here’s what the people pushing this “deal” aren’t telling you: It accepts 5,000 illegal immigrants a day and gives automatic work permits to asylum recipients—a magnet for more illegal immigration.
— Steve Scalise (@SteveScalise) February 5, 2024
One of the authors of the Senate bill, James Lankford, a Republican from Oklahoma, disputed the 5,000 person limit.
The Border Emergency Authority has been the most misunderstood or maybe just misrepresented parts of the bill. Some people have said it would mean 5,000 people a day are coming into the country every day. That is absurd and untrue.
— Sen. James Lankford (@SenatorLankford) February 5, 2024
He was met quickly with conservatives who read the bill.
It’s in the bill pic.twitter.com/7hBFX5WyuP
— Cernovich (@Cernovich) February 5, 2024
For Democrats, the bill reveals how desperate liberals have gotten to course correct before the 2024 election. For years, Democrats have insisted that the border was secure.
In 2022, for example, Vice President Kamala Harris, who was put in charge of the border by Biden, stated, “The border is secure, but we also have a broken immigration system, in particular over the last four years before we came in, and it needs to be fixed,” Harris told Chuck Todd during an interview for NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday. “We have a secure border in that that is a priority for any nation, including ours and our administration,” she added.
The Democratic stance on the bill could be summed up this way:
Dems in 2021: "There's no crisis at the border."
Dems in 2022: "There's no crisis at the border."
Dems in 2023: "There's no crisis at the border."
Dems in 2024: "There's been a crisis at the border for years and if House Republicans don't pass this bill it's their fault."— Will Chamberlain (@willchamberlain) February 5, 2024
Nothing summed up this more than the president’s press secretary earlier in the week.
DOOCY TIME: “So you guys talk a lot, including today, about how the border wouldn’t to be such a big deal if Congress would have just passed the immigration bill on day one. Who was in charge of Congress on day one?”
KJP: “So, it’s been three years. It’s been three — three whole… pic.twitter.com/TDDPlkaQnc
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) February 6, 2024
[Read More: Jim Jordan Uncovers Latest Biden Scandal]
