How does a bipartisan bill months in the making die less than 24 hours after it sees the light of day? The answer is twofold: the substance is worse than anyone could have expected, and the man charged with implementing the bill isn't actually interested in solving the problem it claims to address. It's the perfect combination for a knockout punch.
First, despite what the legacy media and White House stenographers may say, the bill is in no way "tough" on the border, nor would it curtail the mass migration crisis we face. In fact, it would do the opposite.
For example, the bill's "border emergency" provision would make mass migration the status quo by allowing a weekly average of 5,000 migrants per day, or up to 8,500 in one day—not including Mexicans, unaccompanied minors, people who claim asylum at ports of entry, and people using the humanitarian parole program.
The number of migrants allowed into our country with these exemptions alone would be in the millions every year. Moreover, the "emergency" designation, which is waivable by the president who created this crisis, could only be used a certain number of days per year and expires altogether in a few short years.
Meanwhile, the bill does nothing about the millions of migrants allowed to enter our country since President Biden took office. Instead, the bill pledges to reward those migrants—mostly people seeking a better life, as opposed to those fleeing persecution—with work permits and release from detention.
This will create an even stronger magnet for even more illegal immigration. But these migrants are not the only ones promised the ability to work. The bill also authorizes an additional 250,000 green cards over the next five years.
Weakened by deindustrialization and punished by inflation, American workers are currently struggling to provide for their families. The costs of necessities like food, fuel, and housing are at a significant high. Meanwhile, the middle class seems increasingly out of reach. As conservative economist Oren Cass has noted, the best thing policymakers can do in this situation is keep a lid on the labor market, thereby giving workers extra bargaining power for wages.
This bill would do the opposite, causing a race to the bottom in wages.
The bill also gives Congress's blessing to one of the Biden Administration's most egregious violations and contortions of federal law: the mass expansion of the humanitarian parole program. This White House has unilaterally broadened its parole power to allow more than one million people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and elsewhere into the United States. As one Biden Administration insider has anonymously bragged, "The legislation does not impact the [current] process at all."
All in all, there are countless outrageous provisions in the text and a scarce few, such as a heightened asylum standard, that address the challenges facing Americans on the border and in towns and cities across the nation.
In fact, the entire bill is designed to build a legal framework for the Biden Administration's extra-legal actions.
Here's the truth: If President Biden wanted to secure the border, he could do it right now. Federal law, the same law that former President Trump operated on, gives this White House the power to "suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens" when the national interest is at stake. President Biden doesn't need "emergency" authority from Congress. All he needs is to reinstate the policies he spent the last three years dismantling.
But President Biden won't do that, and we shouldn't be surprised. In 2020, he told the world, American voters, and human-trafficking cartels alike, that he would stop enforcing immigration laws. Now, he's too handicapped by his radical base to reverse course and mitigate our crisis. Instead, he wants Republicans to take the blame for "blocking" his phony "deal."
President Biden made a very intentional decision to open the border. He broke the law to do it and even took states to court when they tried to fend for themselves. A new law, even a good one, was never going to force this White House to follow the rules.
For all the handwringing Republicans receive from the Left and the media about "rule of law" and the "sanctity of institutions," the Biden Administration has been waging a full-blown assault on both. As we've seen, Congress has limited abilities to check a runaway executive. The ultimate ability to check this president rests with the voters.
Marco Rubio, a Republican, is the senior U.S. senator from Florida.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
