At the end of this week, the House Republican Conference plans to release an ambitious legislative blueprint they plan to use if Republicans take back the House after the midterm elections, reports Fox News.
Last year, House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) created The American Security Task Force, led by Rep. John Katko (R-N.Y.), to form policies aimed at solving the Biden border crisis. The framework created by the task force was obtained by Fox News Digital and consists of several policy proposals.
In a recent interview with Fox, Rep. John Katko pointed out several ways Biden's open southern border has impacted American communities, including a dramatic increase in fentanyl overdoses. The congressman added:
We've got a lot of very serious security issues going on at the border, people from 160 different countries have come across the border, and it's not just a Mexican and Northern Triangle issue, it's a worldwide issue that people are exploiting. It's really a concern. So everything we did in here has that background in mind and that background of 'We've got to stop this.' We can turn it around, and we've got to do better.
The policy proposals include legislation requiring the government to continue constructing effective border barriers; 500 miles of border barriers were built under the Trump Administration but construction was immediately halted under Biden.
That same legislation would also modernize Customs and Border Protection by creating an advanced entry/exit system at the northern and southern borders able to track who legally enters and exits the country on visas. The legislation would also increase CBP staffing and funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The framework also includes broad changes to America's broken asylum system by closing several loopholes. The Republican blueprint would reinstate the Migrant Protection Protocols forcing migrants to wait out a final decision on their asylum claims in Mexico rather than being released into the U.S.
The blueprint would also create reforms to disincentivize the movement of unaccompanied alien children to the border, such as ending the "abuse" of parole authority used by the Biden Admin. to release vast numbers of aliens into the country's interior.
Rep. Katko also mentioned that the framework would include measures to mandate E-Verify to ensure that illegal aliens cannot access government benefits and increase the penalties for overstaying a visa.
Every component of what we're doing is important, whether it's building the physical barriers, whether it's giving ICE more funding, whether it's ensuring that employers are using E-Verify, to ending the abuse of parole authority, all those things contribute to a more secure nation.
And what's important about that is that if the bad guys understand that we are going to enforce the laws and we're going to implement programs that are going to ensure that the gaming of the system that's going on now, then they won't be advertising to people to come to the border because they won't be able to get them across, and they won't be making billions of dollars a month," Katko said.
The National Border Patrol Council stated that it "staunchly supports these solutions because we are currently witnessing unprecedented public safety and public health crises that are the direct result of the Biden Administration's radical open borders policies." NBPC President Brandon Judd added:
This Democratic-controlled Congress has completely and totally failed the American people, as record numbers of Americans are dying of drug overdoses and record numbers of individuals defy our laws with no consequences and enter our country illegally, oftentimes undetected. This lawlessness and the tragic loss of lives cannot continue, and we have the ability to do something about it.
You can read the full article here.
