Harris said she’d sign the bipartisan border bill that Trump stopped. Here's what's in it.

David Knowles

During her and Tim Walz’s interview with CNN on Thursday night, Vice President Kamala Harris reiterated her support for a bipartisan Senate bill that would have overhauled the country’s immigration system in an effort to cut down on the number of undocumented migrants crossing the southern U.S. border.

“I will make sure that it comes to my desk, and I would sign it,” Harris said, noting that former President Donald Trump “killed the bill” before it came up for a vote in February.

Titled the Emergency National Security Supplemental Appropriations Act, the legislation aimed to solve one of the most contentious political issues of the last several decades. Even though the National Border Patrol Council, the union representing Border Patrol agents, endorsed the bill, Senate Republicans abruptly pulled their support after Trump signaled his disapproval. Ending undocumented immigration has long been a signature campaign issue for Trump, who called the bill a “great gift to the Democrats, and a Death Wish for The Republican Party.”

Kamala Harris
Vice President Kamala Harris. (Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters) (REUTERS / Reuters)

Republican Sen. James Lankford, who helped author the bill and forge the compromise to bring it to a vote, made clear that Trump bore the responsibility for its demise.

“It got stirred up in all the presidential politics, and several of my colleagues started looking for ways [to torpedo] after President Trump said, 'Don't fix anything' — like during the presidential election," Langford said.

Here’s a look at what is included in the failed legislation the American Immigration Council called “the most sweeping immigration bill of the twenty-first century.”

A key mechanism in the bill allows a president to simply deport migrants who enter the country between official border crossing points and to deny them the ability to apply for asylum.

Those powers would be triggered when the daily average number of migrant crossings hits 4,000 per day for seven consecutive days. In June, the month with the lowest number of migrant border crossings during President Biden’s tenure, there were 1,820 illegal crossings, according to Customs and Border Protection data.

Those seeking political asylum status would have to immediately establish a “reasonable possibility” that they could prevail during their initial screening interview. They would also be asked to show “reasonable grounds” as to why they could not simply move to another part of the country they were fleeing to avoid persecution.

Nothing has divided Democrats and Republicans like Trump’s push to build a wall in order to secure the Southern border. But the Senate bill would require that hundreds of millions of dollars in unspent funds be applied to the further construction of that barrier.

The bill would add more than 1,500 new Customs and Border Protection agents. In addition, it would add 4,300 asylum officers to help ease the workload in a system that has become backlogged with asylum applications. It would also fund the addition of 100 immigration judges who decide those cases.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement currently has roughly 40,000 beds it can use when migrants are detained overnight in the U.S. The bill would require the construction of new facilities so as to increase that number to 50,000.

In an effort to diminish the flow of drugs like fentanyl into the U.S., the bill would fund the purchase and installation of roughly 100 inspection machines at points of entry. CBP has reported that its agents had seized more than 27,000 pounds of fentanyl at the border from October 2022 to September 2023.

In order to help cities and states struggling to cope with the surge in undocumented immigration, the bill would provide $1.4 billion in funding to help pay for necessities like shelters. It would also speed up the process for migrants who are awaiting asylum claims to obtain work permits.

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