A new bill has been proposed to help at the border, but it has Speaker of the House Mike Johnson saying that it was “dead on arrival,” and “worse than expected.”
According to CNN, the bill would enable emergency powers to be given to the Secretary of Homeland security in the event of overwhelming numbers of migrants crossing the border. If the number reaches 4000 a day for a week, Department of Homeland Security has the option to enact this authority. If it reaches 5000 a day over a one week stretch, the Department of Homeland Security is required to enforce their authority. Furthermore, on any given day, it would take up to 8500 Migrants Crossing in one day to enact the emergency powers.
The bill would additionally speed up the asylum process, enabling new migrants to be processed faster; fester meaning in six months instead of a few years.
Mike Johnson Says New Border Bill Was “Dead On Arrival”
NEW: Speaker Mike Johnson says President Biden opened the border, his administration created the current border catastrophe, and “The President has the authority to take action today to fix it. But he refuses to act.” WATCH pic.twitter.com/JHE6N0vb6P
— Simon Ateba (@simonateba) February 5, 2024
As reported by Breitbart, the speaker of the house Mike Johnson posted to X that: “This bill is even worse than we expected, and won’t come close to ending the border catastrophe the President has created,” Johnson continued: “As the lead Democrat negotiator proclaimed: Under this legislation, ‘the border never closes.’”
While the House could argue over whether or not the border should literally be open at any point, one real problem with the bill lies here. The threshold for Department of Homeland Security enforcement is too high. At 3500 migrants on average per day, which is below the first threshold, the US could easily see more than 1.2 million migrants across the border on a yearly basis. Furthermore, the Department of Homeland Security is not required to enforce this until hitting 5000 on average per day. This means that, depending on the judgment of the Department of Homeland Security, we could easily see 1.7 million cross annually, which would match all-time highs if it were not for the 2.5 million plus crossing on an annual basis under the current administration.
