Border securityLawmakers defeat Sen. Cruz’s amendment because of its cost
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), saying the Gang of Eight’s immigration overhaul draft does not provide DHS with sufficient incentives to bolster border security, offers an amendment which would substantially increase border security funding. Fellow GOP lawmakers say the price tag — $30-$40 billion – is too high, and defeat the amendment.
Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) says that the Gang of Eight’s immigration legislation does nothing to make sure DHS secretary Janet Napolitano secures the border before illegal immigrants get on the path to citizenship.
“If Las Vegas oddsmakers were laying odds of the probability of the Department of Homeland Security concluding at whatever time it came into effect that the border would be secure, under this current bill, the Las Vegas odds would be greater than 10,000 to 1,” the Hill reports Cruz as saying last Thursday during the Judiciary Committee’s markup of the landmark legislation.
“It is a virtual certainty because the bill does not have meaningful metrics that actually have bite. It doesn’t have consequence,” Cruz said.
Cruz tried to add an amendment to the Senate bill to raise the number of border patrol agents to 60,000, and quadruple the number of cameras on the border, drones in the air and on the ground, helicopters used to monitor the border, and create a double layer fence along the border.
In addition, the amendment would prevent DHS from processing applications by illegal immigrants for provisional status until the security components of the amendment are met. Security experts, however, said it would take almost ten years for all the requirements in the amendment to be met.
When introducing his amendment, Cruz said the amendment was needed so Congress would not be too lenient on secretary Napolitano or her successor. Cruz’s fellow Republicans did not agree with him, and his amendment failed by a 5-13 vote.
Senator Jeff Flake (R-Arizona), a member of the Gang of Eight, said the cost of Cruz’s amendment (about $30-$40 billion) what lawmakers turned off.
“That’s a substantial sum,” Flake told theHill. “We need improved border security. I think that if we look at this, it’s just probably somewhere we can’t go.”
Senator Charles Schumer (D-New York), another member of the bipartisan group, is confident that the security provisions in the group’s immigration draft, which is currently being looked at the Senate Judiciary Committee, will be more than enough.
“I think that’s moot. They’re going to be met,” Schumer said during at a breakfast sponsored by theChristian Science Monitor, when asked about the possibility of falling short of the bill’s metrics.
