Senator James Lankford blasted his fellow Republicans for criticizing the border security package he helped negotiate, insinuating that the 2024 election was a driving factor.
Lankford (R-Okla.) helped broker the deal with Sens. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.). Former President Donald Trump has urged Republicans to take up the deal.
“It did attract Republicans four months ago, not to provide funding for Ukraine, for Israel, and for our southern border, because we demanded a change in policy,” Lankford said on “Fox News Sunday.”
“A few months later, when we finally got to the end, they were like, ‘Oh, just kidding, I actually don’t want to [a] law changes because of a presidential election year.’ We all have an oath to the Constitution.”
The exact text of the agreement has not been fully finalized but leaked parts show it would create the power to automatically turn away migrants trying to cross the border when crossings eclipse 5,000 a day, sources told The Post.
Senator James Lankford asked his fellow Republicans to demand that stronger border provisions be included in the supplemental package. FOX
President Biden has endorsed the plan and pledged to use that authority the day he hypothetically signs the compromise legislation into law.
Prominent Republicans like Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas.) have bristled at the figure, admonishing that it “normalizes 5,000 people a day coming in,” which is about 1.8 million people a year.
“It’s definitely not going to let a bunch of people in. It’s focused on actually changing people,” Lankford responded. “This is not about letting 5,000 people in a day. This is the most misunderstood part of this proposal.”
President Biden has urged Congress to send him a border deal so he can sign it. AP
“This is set up so that if you have people rushing to the border, the border is closed – nobody comes in,” he added.
At this time, a group of migrants usually arrive at the border and declare asylum. They are then often given court dates, in a massively backlogged system, and then released onto US soil.
Under the details of the rumored border deal, though, most asylum seekers will be cut off from entry when crossings reach the main threshold.
Former President Donald Trump has opposed the border deal. Getty Images
Another gripe from some Republicans is a provision to expand immigrant visas to 50,000 annually and retool the work visa process for select immigrants within 180 days of their release from Customs and Border Protection.
“The only people who get a work permit through this process are those who have gone through a rigorous assessment, have been evaluated, [and] likely [to get] asylum,” Lankford said.
“That’s a fraction of the people who go through the process.”
Senator Chris Murphy suggested that the 2024 election complicates progress on the deal. CNN
Trump has aggressively opposed the deal, stating that “a bad border deal is far worse than no border deal.”
Lankford went on to underline that the alliance has “tools that even the Trump administration was looking for” during his presidency.
“I don’t know anyone who believes that if President Trump was elected during his current presidency, this border wouldn’t have this problem,” he added.
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Recently, the Oklahoma Republican Party voted to censure Lankford for his role in border negotiations.
Murphy’s negotiator explained Sunday that an agreement on the border had been reached, but that the text was still being finalized.
“The question is whether Republicans will listen to Donald Trump,” Murphy told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday. “He thinks it’s a winning political issue for him.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told his colleagues last week that if the deal passed the Senate, it would be “dead on arrival” in the House.
During fiscal year 2023, a record-breaking 2,475,669 migrant encounters were recorded along the Mexican border, according to US Customs and Border Protection.
Preliminary data shows more than 300,000 migrant encounters were recorded in December.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
