Attorney General Ken Paxton announced on Tuesday that he is leading a coalition with 15 other attorneys general in opposition to the border bill meant to address the crisis caused by a surge in unlawful migration.
This bill, authored by Sen. James Lankford (R-OK), has become divisive among lawmakers due to its high costs and the number of daily encounters it requires to trigger a shutdown at the border, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
Paxton and the 15 other attorneys general sent a letter to U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to outline five issues with the border bill.
Proponents of the bill, including President Joe Biden, have argued that the legislation would be the “toughest and fairest set of border reforms in decades.”
Yet the attorneys’ general letter read:
“We should not have to explain to you the dire threat that the border invasion presents to Texas, the undersigned States, and the entire Nation. However, the recent’ border bill’ proposed in the Senate after negotiations with the Biden White House compels us to offer some suggestions concerning the best course of action regarding federal immigration law.”
First discussed in the letter was the inclusion of foreign aid in the bill. The attorneys general wrote that the “people of this country are entitled to the enforcement of the country’s laws as a baseline expectation, not as a negotiation tactic for the president’s allies in the Senate.”
Second, the attorneys general wrote that the 5,000 daily encounters required to trigger a shutdown would be “virtually equivalent to the crisis-level volume of immigration” currently being experienced at the southern border.
The third issue with the bill discussed in the letter was the “outrageous” requirement to “tether the funding for ICE to pursue deportations to the other provisions in the bill.”
Another problem listed was the billions in funding allocated to organizations with “a vested interest in drawing millions of new arrivals to the United States and coordinating their resettlement around the nation.”
Finally, the attorneys general wrote in the letter that “one of the most egregious portions of this bill” would be the stipulation that the D.C. District Court would have jurisdiction to hear all arguments brought forth against the provisions in this proposal.
“Doing so would drastically stack the deck against any legal challenges brought by the States against the federal government. This provision breaks with precedent. States — red and blue — have always been able to challenge federal policies in federal courts in their own states,” the letter continued.
The attorneys general asserted that those in favor of the bill “risk misleading the public about what it takes to solve the problems Biden has created at the border,” adding that they would support the bill if the only goal were to establish stricter immigration laws.
“We implore our lawmakers to return to the basics: eliminate incentives for aliens to come to the country, eliminate policies, definitions, and loopholes that allow them to illegitimately enter and stay, and credibly fortify national deportation efforts. It is straightforward and simple to solve these problems and do what is right.”