WASHINGTON — The bipartisan Senate bill to fund border security and aid for Israel and Ukraine could not even get through the chamber that created it. The bill failed a procedural vote Wednesday afternoon when it could not get the 60 votes needed to move the debate forward.
Many Republicans quickly turned on the bill, and they rallied around one point in particular.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise tweeted just after the bill was released Sunday evening, “Here’s what the people pushing this 'deal' aren’t telling you: It accepts 5,000 illegal immigrants a day.”
QUESTION
Would the emergency powers in the Senate's border security plan allow 5,000 migrants into the U.S. per day?
SOURCES
ANSWER
Five thousand encounters would have triggered mandatory actions, but that does not equate to 5,000 people coming and staying.
WHAT WE FOUND
The Emergency National Supplemental Security Appropriations Act, created after negotiations between Sens. James Lankford (R-Oklahoma), Kyrsten Sinema (I-Arizona), and Chuck Schumer (D-New York), contains a section that sets up a border emergency authority for the Secretary of Homeland Security. The border emergency authority would have allowed the secretary to order almost all migrants who crossed into the U.S. between official ports of entry to be sent back. Exceptions were set up for unaccompanied minors, cases in which immigration officers believe there are significant humanitarian or safety concerns, and other limited circumstances.
The secretary could voluntarily enact this authority to close the border if Customs and Border Patrol officers report an average of 4,000 migrant encounters per day over seven days. The authority would be mandated if the rolling average reached 5,000 encounters per day.
That is not the same as saying the border is open until those numbers are met.
First, one encounter does not equate to one person allowed to cross the border and stay in the U.S. The Pew Research Center defines encounters as each time a migrant is taken into custody by border patrol agents or turned away while entering the country.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement also reports that more than 520,000 migrants were deported and flown back to their home countries between May 2023 and the end of January. That marks the period since the end of the public health emergency and the end of Title 42 expulsions.
Sen. Sinema wrote on her website that the border emergency authority would have ended what is known as catch and release, when migrants detained by officers are allowed to stay in the country while they wait for an asylum hearing.