By Jason Hopkins
Immigration hardliners have blasted the congressional deal on border security, which includes far less funding for a border wall than President Donald Trump initially requested.
Members of a select bipartisan committee announced late Monday that they have reached an “agreement in principle” over border security. While lawmakers have yet to produce legislative text, the deal will reportedly include $1.375 billion for physical barriers, which would fund 55 miles of new border fencing. The deal also includes a new cap on migrant detention beds, lowering the number to about 40,000 total beds.
Such a funding agreement would be a boost to what the country already spends on border security. The U.S. federal government has doled out roughly $9.7 billion building physical barriers since 2007. The majority of this money has been allocated to barriers along the country’s southwest border. Around 650 miles is protected with some sort of fencing, leaving roughly 1,350 miles still open.
The current compromise is a far cry from the $5.7 billion Trump has long requested for border wall funding. Immigration hawks have already begun hammering it.
“It’s not a good deal for the president and it’s not a good deal for the American people,” RJ Hauman, the government relations director for the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), told The Daily Caller News Foundation on Tuesday. “Remember, a border wall was supposed to cost around $25 billion, President Trump went down to $5.7 billion, and now they are even willing to do somewhere in the range of $2 billion.”
A spokesman for ICE declined to comment on the tentative deal.
It’s not clear if Trump would find the $1.375 billion in funding acceptable. The president said at a campaign rally in El Paso, Texas, Monday night he would “never sign a bill that forces the mass release of island criminals into our country,” referencing Democrats’ goal of reducing the number of migrant detention beds that house illegal aliens. Such a reduction would force immigration officials, they believe, to prioritize holding only criminal illegal aliens while letting otherwise law-abiding foreign nationals loose.
FAIR blasted the idea of reducing the number of detention beds.
“Remember, the problem right now isn’t people crossing the border illegally. It’s people presenting themselves to border patrol agents – people who want to get apprehended – so they can lodge a frivolous asylum claim,” Hauman explained. “They know we don’t have the detention space so we just release them into the interior of the country.”
“It was troubling to see that Republicans were even negotiating on detention space,” Hauman continued.
Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities for this original content, email licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
And where is our own Congressional delegate on all of this? Leahy calls the border wall nothng more than an ego boost to the President. Leahy has always been hateful while accomplishing nothing excepting shooting off his mouth ENDANGERING AMERICANS! This man doesn’t give a crap about you! Remember. He LEAKED CLASSIFIED info to the media during Desert Storm….UNDERMINING America. Now, his opposition to the border again endangers Americans. This man is disgusting. And the other two drips, Sanders and Welch, deserve their own comment.
Petemo, our three stooges get what they deserve !! How and why do they
keep getting elected ??
Dumb, ill educated and ill informed Vermonters.
Why should we celebrate when unskilled illiterates with different cultures, and with dubious or criminal backgrounds, ILLEGALLY enter the US to live off of various government programs?
Thé US already has about 30 million of such dysfunctional folks.
Why make a bad situation even more expensive.
With all those burdens, where would the money come from to finance the latest neo socialist nightmare called the Green New Deal, concocted by a 29 y old neophyte and her incompetent congressional staff
Our foreig trading partners are laughing their heads off, watching the US shoot itself in both feet, instead of maximizing the advantage of our low energy prices.
This is a PPoor agreement, but the President should take it as a down payment, as this just goes
to show how much the DemocRATs hate the President ( Obstructionist ), then I would shut down
the southern border until it’s secured …….No one into the US until the borders secure !!.
As it looks like the Dems what to play dirty, Trump doesn’t mind getting into the mud so Secondly,
I would not sign any legislation that the DemocRATs bring to his desk….. Nothing !!
POTUS, keep the country going in the current direction and you’ll be in 2020, then watch the Dems
melt away……………….