Christian Smith
The Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) is criticizing the Senate’s revival of the bipartisan border agreement, opposing both its content and its potential to overturn any movement to reform the immigration system.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is bringing legislation back from the dead to support vulnerable Democrats, including Sens. Jon Tester (Mont.), Jacky Rosen (Nev.), Bob Casey (Nev.) Pa.) and Tammy Baldwin (Wis.), and to build an argument for MAGA obstructionism in border and immigration policy.
But that strategy is not swaying immigrant advocates toward the bill, which has long drawn criticism as a unilateral set of Democratic concessions.
“The Senate’s border bill once again fails to meet the moment, presenting enforcement-only policies and not including provisions that will keep families together,” CHC Chair Nanette Díaz Barragán (D-Calif.) said in an announcement.
“As written, the bill excludes critical protections and legal pathways for families, farmworkers, and America’s Dreamers who have been in the U.S. contributing to our nation’s communities and economy for decades.”
The bill was negotiated for months between centrist Democrats Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) and Republican Sen. James Lankford (Okla.).
Its central premise was to find bipartisan common ground on how to strengthen border security and limit asylum without getting bogged down in debate over how to improve the immigration system.
That framing has drawn the ire of immigrant advocates who see the idea of tightening asylum laws at best as a potential quid pro quo for liberalizing the country’s visa system and providing a path to citizenship for immigrants. undocumented and, at worst, as a building block in the expansion of a surveillance system that is hostile to immigrants.
“The bill seeks record funding for immigration detention – levels higher than seen even during the Trump administration. Private prison companies will reap the benefits, while refugees will be punished with incarceration for the mere act of seeking safety,” representatives from the National Immigrant Justice Center in opposition to Schumer’s reintroduction of the bill.
Democrats seeking comprehensive immigration reform also view the bill as a rent-grab, leaving them with little to offer on trade if comprehensive immigration negotiations are ever held.
“The CHC recognizes that our immigration system is broken and that there are challenges at the border that Congress must address. However, if this bill is approved, it will delay true comprehensive immigration reform by years,” said Barragán.
Schumer’s resurrection of the deal is unlikely to result in the bill getting much more than a vote in the Senate, since Republicans in the House, as well as some Democrats and Republicans in the Senate, have already voiced opposition.
The deal initially collapsed in February after months of closed-door negotiations that excluded key players like the CHC, largely because former President Trump expressed opposition to the deal, stifling Republican support.
Advocates worry that a second attempt could help cement the bill’s initial stance of bipartisan compromise on the asylum crackdown and sideline immigration reform.
“Any bipartisan solution must combine border enforcement with actions to keep families together and, at a minimum, include the bipartisan Dream and Promise Act for our dreamers and the Farm Workforce Modernization Act for our farmworkers who they feed us,” said Barragán.
