The Details of Biden's Border Security Bill Show It Won't Work - and That's Probably the Plan

streiff reporting for RedState 

Joe Biden, Chuck Schumer, and some GOP Senators are trying to bully the GOP into signing on to support an as yet unreleased immigration "reform" bill. Last night, Fox News's Bill Melugin revealed the key provisions which show that Senator Ted Cruz's "stinking pile of crap" description is kind.

On Friday, the White House released a statement purporting to offer the GOP a plan to fix the border.

The statement reads, in part, "What’s been negotiated would – if passed into law – be the toughest and fairest set of reforms to secure the border we’ve ever had in our country."

Biden says he just needs "1,300 border patrol agents, 375 immigration judges, 1,600 asylum officers, and over 100 cutting-edge inspection machines."...and "a new emergency authority to shut down the border,"...and all will be well.

Senator Ted Cruz accurately described the situation at a Capitol Hill press conference.

Friday night, Bill Melugin was able to provide some details.

BREAKING: Senate border deal details, per source familiar I just had a call with. 

- Mandatory detention of all single adults. - Mandatory “shut down” of border once average daily migrant encounters hits 5,000. Importantly, this 5,000 number includes 1,400 CBP One app entries at ports of entry per day, and roughly 3,600 illegal crossings per day. 

- How is that enforced? Once the 5,000 threshold is hit, a new authority is codified into law that requires Border Patrol to immediately remove illegal immigrants they catch without processing. They would not get to request asylum, they would immediately be removed. This includes removals back to Mexico, and deportations to home countries. This would be a *massive* change from current policy, which is that once an illegal immigrant reaches US soil, they must be processed via Title 8 and allowed to claim asylum. Under this new authority – they are not processed, and they are mandatorily immediately removed once the “shut down” threshold is reached. 

- This “shut down” also takes effect is there are 8,500 migrant encounters in a single day. 

- The “shut down” would not lift the next day. It wouldn’t lift until daily encounters are reduced to under 75% of the 5,000 threshold for at least two weeks. This means the “shut down” authority would not lift until two weeks of an average of less than 3,750 migrant encounters per day. 

- Some family units will be released with ATD (Alternatives to Detention, ankle monitors etc). 

- New removal authority to immediately remove all migrants who do not have valid asylum claims, which will be determined within 6 months rather than the years long process we have right now. - Any migrant caught trying to cross twice during “shut down” phase would be banned from entering US for one year. 

The US will need an agreement with Mexico for MX to take back non-Mexican illegal immigrants. This hasn't been ironed out yet. President Biden approves of the deal and is ready to sign it as is right now and implement the new authority it would give him.

This deal would allow 1.825 million illegals to enter the US every year.

Once the 5,000 daily threshold is reached, the Border Patrol is allowed to remove them immediately. The obvious question is, why 5,000? Why not zero? Because if you can close the border at 5,000, you can close it at zero...and if you can't close it at zero, you can't close it at 5,000.

It looks like the first 5,000 across the line are allowed to request asylum; the rest aren't. I don't see how that survives any sort of legal challenge.

Immediate removal sounds nice, but that authority only applies to Mexicans. The Mexican government usually doesn't accept Other Than Mexicans (OTMs) because they are illegal immigrants.

The border is no longer in crisis when the number of daily illegals falls below 3,750. Allowing 1.369 million illegal immigrants into the US every year doesn't sound like control to me.

Family units will be paroled.

There is no mention of how unaccompanied minors will be handled.

Illegals caught trying to cross twice while the border is in "shut down" (that means 5,000 illegals have already entered that day) would be banned from entering again for a year. Does that make any sense to you? If we can ban them from the US for a year, why can't we ban them for life?

This will all be done with 1,300 new Border Patrol agents.

The deal claims that all asylum claims will be adjudicated in six months. This is bullshit. There are nearly 2 million claims awaiting adjudication. Some 99,000 cases are added each month, while about 43,000 are resolved. This is despite the denial rate under Biden cratering. Under Trump, about half of all asylum claims were denied; under Biden, the number is about 15 percent.

Biden is asking for the authority to hire 375 more immigration judges. According to the Congressional Research Service, even if the number of immigration judges was doubled to about 1,400, given the number of asylum claims filed each month, the backlog of cases would continue to grow.

This bill has two purposes. First, to normalize illegal immigration into the United States at a rate of at least 2 million per year if the plan worked. But the plan can't work because the "5,000" per day can't survive legal scrutiny. There is no plan to reduce the case backlog. There is no plan to deal with the second-order problem of what to do with this mass of illegals and the influx of "Dreamers." The second objective is to give Biden unfettered control of the US Border via some nebulous "new emergency authority." Sorry, but Joe Biden and "Weird Al" Mayorkas are the last guys in the universe who should be trusted with any sort of "emergency authority."

The proposed deal stinks. There is nothing good about it. The people who are saying the GOP should pass it to give Trump a whip-hand when (talk about putting the cart before the horse) he becomes president are morons. Other than hiring a handful of people, this does nothing to secure our border or unf**k our immigration problem.