American voters elected a Republican House majority, in large part, to solve the worst border crisis in our nation's history. With today's passage of H.R. 2 - lawmakers are now answering that call.
On Thursday, the House of Representatives voted on and passed H.R. 2, the "Secure the Border Act of 2023," by a 219-213 vote. The importance of this bill cannot be overstated if approved by the Senate and ultimately signed by the President - H.R. 2 would END the ongoing historic border crisis almost immediately.
Despite the gloomy Senate/White House outlook, Congressmen Diaz-Balart and McClintock's H.R. 2, the "Secure the Border Act of 2023," deserves great praise as it contains the most ambitious immigration reforms ever voted on by either chamber of Congress.
Chris Chmielenski, Vice President of NumbersUSA, stated in a recent op-ed:
The timing of the vote is no accident. Today, the Biden administration will end the Title 42 restrictions that gave border agents the authority to quickly expel illegal migrants. As a result, border crossings -- which are currently hovering near record levels of roughly 7,000 per day -- are expected to double to 13,000 per day. That'd easily make 2023 the worst year for illegal immigration, ever. Last year, law enforcement officials encountered nearly 2.4 million illegal immigrants at the border, blowing past 2021's record-setting total of 1.6 million.
H.R. 2 includes a laundry list of essential immigration reforms long fought for by NumbersUSA, including;
- Plugging loopholes in the asylum system that are currently being exploited by economic migrants by raising the bar for "credible fear" claims and denying entry to aliens claiming asylum at the border who have passed through a safe third country on their way to the United States and failed to apply in that safe country;
- Blocking the administration from continuing its catch-and-release policy by making most illegal aliens ineligible for parole or release from custody other than to be returned to their home country or to a contiguous country to await the adjudication of their asylum claim there (Remain in Mexico);.
- Preventing family units who cross the border illegally from being released into the United States by requiring family units apprehended at the border to be detained, protecting them from exploitation and victimization by the cartels and traffickers;
- Reining in the breathtaking and illegal abuse of parole that this administration has been using to create its own immigration system outside of the confines of the Immigration and Nationality Act; and
- Installing teeth into efforts to deter visa overstays.
Perhaps most importantly, the bill would require employers to check the legal status of new hires through the free, easy-to-use E-Verify system. By making it much harder for illegal aliens to find jobs, the reform would deter would-be migrants from ever journeying to the United States.
Without the allure of fraudulent employment that pays many times what an alien could earn in their home countries, illegal migrants would no longer have that incentive to commit asylum fraud, deliberately overstay visas, or smuggle children across the border with the help of cartels.
Simply put, the "Secure the Border Act" reforms, taken together, would strike a devastating blow to illegal immigration. The American people can only hope that, someday soon, there will be a Senate and White House that would turn these good ideas into law.
You can read more about the "Secure the Border Act" here.
To view the final vote, please click here.
