Chris Lange, FISM News

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House Republicans on Monday debuted key border security legislation as the country faces the third year of the largest mass influx of foreign nationals in its history. Meanwhile, another migrant caravan of more than 3,000 people has been making its way toward the southern border since Sunday.

House Homeland Security Chairman Mark Green (R-Tenn.) and Republican committee members introduced the Border Reinforcement Act of 2023, a bill two years in the making, in large part due to extensive internal debate. 

“Following over five million illegal encounters at our Southwest border, a worsening crisis at our Northern and Maritime borders, and the record number of lives lost to fentanyl poisoning across the country, it is clear this administration does not have the operational control it claims,” Green said in a statement announcing the bill’s debut.

Read more about @HomelandGOP’s Border Reinforcement Act here👇 https://t.co/686wCO7JVV pic.twitter.com/bPin2hOoyp

— Rep. Mark Green (@RepMarkGreen) April 25, 2023

“Today, this Committee introduced real border security solutions crafted with the insight of those who pay the cost of this crisis every day: frontline Border Patrol agents, their families, local business owners, state and local law enforcement, as well as farmers and ranchers,” Green said.

The bill would require the Biden administration to resume construction of the U.S.-Mexico border wall to extend it to a minimum of 900 miles. More than 400 miles of wall were erected under the Trump administration in fulfillment of a 2016 campaign promise. President Biden pulled the funding for its completion when he took office. FISM reported last month that GOP lawmakers accused the administration of paying $130,000 per day to store unused construction materials.

The legislation also takes aim at the current administration’s CBP One app, a platform used by migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela to gain asylum approval if they can find a U.S.-based sponsor. 

The bill further seeks to:

• Increase Border Protection staff 
• Modernize and enhance border security technology
• Greenlight assistance at the border from local law enforcement
• Restrict the CBP’s use of humanitarian parole; and
• Require transparency from the Department of Homeland Security, including the provision of data on migrant “gotaways”

Asylum reform and detention requirements were addressed in separate legislation approved in the Judiciary Committee last week. The Homeland Security Committee bill serves as a companion to that bill.

The debut of the Border Reinforcement Act of 2023 followed several southern border visits from committee members and meetings with federal law enforcement and nongovernmental organization personnel. The American Security Task Force established the framework for the legislation in 2021 with the goal of having something the GOP could run with if they took control of the House the following year.

“We’re going to be very aggressive, and I think the administration will have some choices to make,” former New York. Rep. John Katko, then ranking member of homeland security, said at the time.

Committee aides said the bill was developed in close coordination with the Judiciary Committee and that they believe it has broad support across the Republican conference.

Homeland Security will mark up the bill Wednesday, a process likely to extend late into the night with anticipated Democrat-proposed amendments.  

The same day Republicans introduced the legislation, Democrats reintroduced a bill that would broaden the definition of “vulnerable migrants” deemed eligible for asylum to include LGBTQ+ migrants and other groups, exempting them from detainment. 

This article was partially informed by The Washington Examiner, The Hill, and Fox News reports.