Border thoughts

 I recently discussed this issue here, with a focus on Mitch McConnell's we-don't-want-to-undermine-Trump remark. That quickly became an angle - to a significant degree, legitimately so - that those inclined to reflexively put Republicans in the worst possible light used to understandable advantage.

There was no completed Senate bill at the time. Now that there is one, it's possible to make a more concrete assessment of where things stand.

The bill's principal architect, Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma (working with Democrat Chris Murphy of Connecticut and independent Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona), feels like it's a good combination of teeth and humanity:

“Even if President Biden will not admit it, this is a crisis. We must secure our border now. It cannot wait any longer.

“Americans are not opposed to legal and orderly immigration, but they are tired of the chaos and abuse at our border. I am happy to announce, we have finally finished strong bill text to add to the supplemental funding bill. Though most members of the Senate have already been briefed on the contents of the bill, the final text will be distributed to members of the Senate soon and posted online within a day.

“The border security bill will put a huge number of new enforcement tools in the hands of a future administration and push the current Administration to finally stop the illegal flow. The bill provides funding to build the wall, increase technology at the border, and add more detention beds, more agents, and more deportation flights. The border security bill ends the abuse of parole on our southwest border that has waived in over a million people. It dramatically changes our ambiguous asylum laws by conducting fast screenings at a higher standard of evidence, limited appeals, and fast deportation."

“New bars to asylum eligibility will stop the criminal cartels from exploiting our currently weak immigration laws. The bill also has new emergency authorities to shut down the border when the border is overrun, new hiring authorities to quickly increase officers, and new hearing authorities to quickly apply consequences for illegal crossings. It changes our border from catch and release to detain and deport.

A main point of contention for those opposed to the bill is that it apparently has a tripwire number of 5,000 illegal crossings a day that would automatically close the border. 

That seems pretty leaky. It would only take ten days of such numbers to equal the population of the city where I live, and 100 days to equal the population of several major US metropolises. 

But it's also moot, given that that number has been exceeded a lot lately:

If the proposal were passed into law, the new authority could be triggered almost immediately, given that border encounters topped 10,000 on some days during December, which was the highest month on record for illegal crossings. 

 But there's a ludicrous amount of good faith packed into this bill:

The bill’s authors would have you believe that after immigrants have traveled thousands of miles and spent thousands of dollars to enter the United States illegally, they will voluntarily surrender to ICE for deportation. It is a fantasy. All immigrants released into the U.S. under the “noncustodial removal proceeding” will disappear into the country forever. Biden will not lift a finger to track them down. He certainly hasn’t so far. He is utterly untrustworthy on this.

And good old subsidization:

The legislation also includes billions of dollars of spending to bail out local governments and nongovernmental organizations so they can continue to provide housing, food, clothing, education, and healthcare for immigrants.

Matthew Continetti makes the point that Biden has legitimate executive authority to act right now, without an unwieldy Congressional bill.  It's more legitimate authority than that which he's used for a number of matters, immigration-related and beyond:

Biden didn’t say he required congressional approval when, on his first day in office, he reversed his predecessor’s order to exclude illegal immigrants from the Census Bureau’s calculations for congressional reapportionment; insulated Dreamers from legal challenges; ended restrictions on entry into the United States for citizens of nations deemed a national security risk; paused deportations; stopped construction of the border wall; and extended the ability of Liberian immigrants to remain in the United States.

Nor did Biden say he required congressional approval when he ended his predecessor’s Remain in Mexico policy; first tried to halt Title 42 authority to remove illegal migrants deemed a public health risk; and expanded presidential parole to admit more than 1 million migrants to the United States.

Biden didn’t go to Congress when he extended the pandemic eviction moratorium. Or when he announced a blatantly unconstitutional workplace vaccine mandate. Or when he revived an egregiously expansive interpretation of the Clean Water Rule. Or when he erased $400 billion in student loans.

True, the courts tossed out the eviction moratorium, vaccine mandate, EPA overreach, and the initial student loan forgiveness plan. If Biden assumes that the courts also would intervene on the border, then he should say so. The point is that Biden’s self-imposed limitations on executive authority have appeared only when the issue is illegal migration.

And then there's the matter of bundling border-policy legislation with with foreign policy. In a sane universe, aid to Ukraine and aid to Israel would be handled on a stand-alone basis (and passed without difficulty).

I'm inclined to think this bill has too many shortcomings to warrant support. But then again, what the hell are we going to do at this late date? 

Ukraine needs ammunition more than ever, given Putin's amassing of 40.000 troops and 500 tanks for a fresh drive into Kupyansk within the month.  Not to mention all kinds of other materiel. 

So the bill is just another example of how post-America cobbles together feeble measures to address its threats in lieu of a strategic vision that would guide us and give a unified sense of why the hell we're doing anything we're doing.