Chris Lieberman, FISM News
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House Republicans revealed their plan on Monday to deliver on one of their top legislative promises, as the Judiciary Committee released a sweeping immigration bill to address the ongoing crisis at the border.
At a press conference Monday marking 100 days since Republicans took control of the House, Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) said,
You’ve seen this Republican majority hard at work, in just 100 days, addressing every single item that we talked on. This week in fact, we’re going to start a border security package through the Judiciary Committee to address this massive problem where millions of people have come across our border.
Scalise continued,
Every single day in America, nearly 300 young people are dying because of drug overdoses, from drugs like fentanyl, because President [Joe] Biden opened up the southern border. Why doesn’t President Biden care about the 300 young people that will die today, and that will die again tomorrow? We’re going to bring a bill to the floor to fix that problem too.
The 137-page bill combines several Republican proposals that would revert U.S. immigration policies back to many Trump-era regulations. Under the new rules, migrants would be ineligible for asylum in the U.S. if they traveled through another country and did not seek protection there first. Asylum-seekers would also now be required to enter the U.S. through a legal port of entry.
In addition, the bill cracks down on the federal government’s use of parole, which grants migrants permission to live and work in the U.S. temporarily. The Biden administration has used parole to provide legal authority for broad immigration programs such as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). But according to the new proposal, parole should be granted, “on a case-by-case basis, and not according to eligibility criteria describing an entire class of potential parole recipients.”
The legislation would also allow migrant children to be detained with their parents for the duration of their immigration proceedings. Currently, minors can only be held in custody for 20 days.
The bill further requires employers to verify the immigration status of potential workers and raises penalties on businesses that hire illegal immigrants.
The House Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote on the package this Wednesday, with the bill expected to pass along party lines. However, from there the legislation faces several hurdles, including skepticism from within the GOP.
Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas), who represents a district on the southern border, previously said that he would not vote for a package that limits legal pathways to citizenship for asylum-seekers. Gonzales and Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart (R-Fla.), who together lead the Congressional Hispanic Conference, expressed their concerns to other Republicans in a closed-door meeting in House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s office.
McCarthy hopes to have the House vote on the package in early May. As the bill is unlikely to receive any support from Democrats, McCarthy can only afford to lose four Republican votes due to the GOP’s thin House majority.
Even if the legislation does pass the House, it faces almost no chance of survival in the Democrat-controlled Senate. However, both parties will be able to use the bill to motivate their bases on the highly-charged issue of immigration.