Top line
Vice President Kamala Harris criticized former President Donald Trump for lobbying Republican lawmakers against passing a bipartisan border bill during Tuesday night’s debate, reigniting debate over the bill, which Trump rejected earlier this year, ahead of the election. Harris called for the bill to be revived.
Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump speak during a presidential debate in … (+)
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During Tuesday night’s debate, Harris praised the bipartisan border bill that lawmakers introduced earlier this year and criticized Trump for killing it to boost his own election campaign. She claimed, “He chose to campaign on a problem rather than solve a problem.”
Harris had stated several times in the run-up to the debate that her top priority on immigration if elected would be to pass the bipartisan border bill. However, this failed earlier this year after the steep increase in border crossings in recent years became a political weak point for the Democrats.
The Border Act of 2024 was originally introduced in February by Senator Chris Murphy (D-Connecticut), after months of negotiations with Senator James Lankford (R-Oklahoma) and Senator Kyrsten Sinema (R-Ireland). Murphy said the bill was also written with help from the White House and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky).
The bill quickly fell apart, however, as Trump loudly condemned it and urged Republicans not to pass it. He called it a “gift” to Democrats and wrote on Truth Social: “A BAD BORDER DEAL IS MUCH WORSE THAN NO BORDER DEAL.”
Murphy told Politico that lawmakers initially believed they could win the support of 20 to 25 Republicans, but the bill ultimately failed in the Senate by a vote of 49 to 50.
In May, Murphy reintroduced the bill, but it failed again by a vote of 43 to 50—and now even Lankford voted against it, as Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) was the only Republican senator to support the bill.
The $118 billion bipartisan bill was a sweeping piece of legislation that, according to Greg Chen, senior director of government relations for the American Immigration Lawyers Association, speaking to CNN, is “probably the most comprehensive border funding and security package we’ve seen in decades.”
What does the border law say?
The bill includes a number of provisions, including imposing new restrictions on border crossings that would empower the government to temporarily take emergency measures to stop unauthorized border crossings between official ports of entry if an average of 5,000 people cross the border per day in a week, or 8,500 in a single day. The asylum process would also be overhauled if passed, with new restrictions, including increasing legal requirements to pass the initial screening and reducing opportunities for asylum seekers to appeal before being forced to leave the country. The legislation would increase the use of alternatives to immigration detention centers – such as requiring immigrants to wear ankle bracelets – until their cases are heard. But those restrictions are offset by other measures that are less strict on immigration, such as increasing funding for legal representation for minors under 13, creating a path to citizenship for some immigrants from Afghanistan, and increasing the number of work and family visas issued each year for three years. The original bill also included about $60 billion in aid to Ukraine – after some Republicans opposed any aid to the country that was not tied to border restrictions. It also included other funding, including $20.2 billion to improve border security and $2.3 billion for aid to refugees in the U.S.
Contra
While Harris is now pushing the bipartisan bill as a central part of her platform, even some Democrats did not support the bill at the time. Senator Alex Padilla (D-California) said it “contains some of the same tried and failed policies that would actually make the situation at the southern border worse,” and criticized the bill for not providing more for recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, for example, while Representative Priya Jayapal (D-Washington) expressed her “concern” about the bill. “There is no question that we need significant changes to our immigration system,” Jayapal said in a statement. “However, this proposal does not contain any of the thoughtful reforms to achieve that or to actually address the situation at the border in a humane way that recognizes the contributions immigrants make to our economy and communities.”
News Peg
Harris and Trump faced off on Tuesday in their first debate since the vice president entered the race. The debate came after Republicans had spent weeks attacking Harris’ immigration record since her nomination. Republicans branded her a “border czar” and linked her to a broader criticism of the Biden administration’s handling of immigration. Harris has not yet announced any immigration proposals beyond a desire to revive the bipartisan deal, though she has backed away from more left-leaning policy positions she supported during her 2019 presidential campaign, such as cutting funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and decriminalizing border crossings so that they are only a civil offense. Harris told CNN in August that she no longer wanted to decriminalize illegal immigration, saying, “We have laws that must be followed and enforced that deal with and deal with people who cross our border illegally. And there should be consequences.”
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