The House tonight adopted H.R. 5230, the $694 million emergency supplemental spending bill for the border surge crisis, by a vote of 223-189. As part of the package, the House passed Rep. Marsha Blackburn’s (R-Tenn.) bill ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival program by a vote of 216-192-1.
Before passage, the House amended H.R. 5230 to add language from a bill by Republicans John Carter (Tex.) and Robert Aderholt (Ala.) that revises the 2008 human trafficking law. The language allows illegal aliens from non-contiguous countries to either leave immediately upon being caught or, if they choose to stay, to be processed and removed like aliens from Mexico or Canada.
Rep. Blackburn’s bill (H.R. 5272) defunds the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which Republicans said dramatically expanded the surge of unaccompanied alien children.
House Speaker John Boehner, R- Ohio, issued this statement after the legislation passed: “The House has just passed a responsible bill to address the humanitarian crisis at our southern border. It will help secure our border and ensure the safe and swift return of these children to their home countries. If President Obama needs these resources, he will urge Senate Democrats to put politics aside, come back to work, and approve our bill. There are also steps the president can take to address this crisis within the law, and without further legislative action. Every day the president and his party fail to act is another day this crisis continues.”
Breitbart obtained the following statement from Sen. Jeff Sessions concerning the legislation: “I applaud the hard work of House Republicans in putting together this package…The border bill has been substantially improved, and provides a marked contrast to the Senate Democrat bill—defeated on a bipartisan basis—that only perpetuated the crisis.”
