Six Republican congressmen sent a letter Monday urging GOP Senators against supporting a possible “amnesty” “framework” for illegal immigrants, according to a copy of the letter exclusively obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Sens. Thom Tillis, a Republican from North Carolina, and Kyrsten Sinema, an independent from Arizona, are weighing a plan to grant citizenship for enrollees in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program as part of a border security bill during a lame duck session, according to Fox News, citing sources familiar with the matter.
However, the House Republicans, including Chip Roy of Texas and Andy Biggs of Arizona, who signed onto the letter, argue that with record illegal migration now is not the time to be floating such a sweeping decision, according to the letter.
Former President Barack Obama introduced DACA in 2012. Since then, the program has permitted more than 800,000 people who arrived in the U.S. as children to stay in the country.
President Joe Biden has urged Congress to pass a plan to grant citizenship to DACA recipients after his administration met dead ends as a result of Republican lawsuits. His administration also codified the program as a federal regulation in October federal judge declared it “illegal.”
The House Republicans argue that there should be no action for protecting illegal migrants, until there is an end to the recent surge in illegal migration.
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U.S. Customs and Border Protection have recorded a record of more than 2.3 million migrants in fiscal year 2022. The surge is expected to worsen with Title 42, the pandemic public health order that the Trump administration invoked to curb COVID-19 by expelling certain illegal migrants, ending on Dec. 21, former Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott and an agent on the southern border recently told the DCNF.
“To couple amnesty with policies disguised as border security that will only provide for processing more migrants is undeniably foolish,” the House Republican lawmakers wrote. “Worse, current discussions of providing a mere extension of Title 42 authority – a limited tool based on halting communicable disease, is in jeopardy in the courts, and which the Biden Administration chooses not to enforce fully anyway – along with funding for more processing centers, and more personnel will simply accelerate this crisis.
“To discuss a permanent amnesty for temporary band aids is a twin catastrophe. The worst thing we could do is attract more people for the cartels to prey upon,” the lawmakers wrote.
The letter referenced a delegation of dozens of Republican Texas House lawmakers’ plan introduced Thursday to secure the border that focuses on slowing the flow of illegal migration.
“The Texas delegation – which knows the border intimately – came together last week as a group and introduced exactly this plan, and many of our fellow border state colleagues have bills that will accomplish these goals as well,” the Republican lawmakers wrote of their priority to secure the border, target the cartels and enforce laws in the interior of the country.
“Yet, news accounts – and statements by certain Senators – indicate there are Senate discussions about a ‘framework’ that will not do these things, and will instead provide, effectively, more funding for processing and a pathway to citizenship for millions of people who broke our laws. Doing so will only attract more flow, not less – risking more deaths, more sex trafficking, more empowerment of cartels, more fentanyl poisonings, and more destruction of American life and property. It defies logic to pursue such a path if the goal is securing our border and preventing more illegal immigration,” they added.
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