Immigration Reform Group Calls on McCarthy to Get Border Security Bill Onto House Floor

​​Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), here speaking at a four-hour Jan. 30 House Rules Committee, has filed the Border Safety & Security Act of 2023, which immigration reform proponents want House Speaker Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Callf.) to fast-track onto the chamber floor. Win McNamee/Getty Images

One of the nation’s largest nonprofits lobbying for immigration reform is calling on House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to bring Republican-sponsored border security bills onto the chamber floor so they can be adopted and implemented as soon as possible.

NumbersUSA Vice President Chris Chmielenski said the first measure that should be put before lawmakers is The Border Safety & Security Act of 2023 filed by Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) on Jan. 9.

“Something needs to be done. We don’t think the Biden administration is doing anything, or the Senate is doing anything” to secure the border, Chmielenski told The Epoch Times. “First and foremost, we’ve got to deal with the border crisis.”

Arlington, Virginia-based NumbersUSA describes itself as “the leading grassroots organization fighting to cut legal and illegal immigration ... [with] 8 million participants nationwide.” It has been battling to “scuttle the amnesty proposals of the Trump, Obama, and Bush administrations” since its 1997 founding.

Border Bill Awaits Hearings, Faces Resistance

Roy’s bill, HR 29, which had 64 co-sponsors as of Feb. 5, is set to be heard before the House Homeland Security and Judiciary committees but isn’t among measures being fast-tracked to the chamber floor. No dates are set for committee hearings.

Roy told The Epoch Times in January that McCarthy assured Republican holdouts during the week-long negotiation that allowed him to ascend to chamber leadership that immigration-related bills would get to the floor, including his “Texas border plan.”

Roy said the bill is a simple proposal, especially for lawmakers who support border security and the Title 42 public health order that allows the United States Border Patrol to quickly expel some illegal aliens. “You’re either for it or you’re against it,” he said.

The bill requires the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to suspend entry of any non-U.S. national without valid documents if it doesn’t have the capacity to detain them while their status is being sorted out or the ability to return them to a foreign country contiguous to the United States.

There’s nothing new in the bill except that Roy’s measure allows states to seek legal action to force the DHS to enforce the existing law.

The Biden administration isn’t enforcing the Trump-era “Remain in Mexico” policy while also decreasing detention space, meaning aliens who entered the United States illegally are allowed to enter before their cases are adjudicated.

Under this “catch-and-release” system, illegal aliens are provided a trackable phone and a court date that’s often months or even years later.

While the “Remain in Mexico” program was enforced under the Trump administration, illegal immigration dropped by about 75 percent, according to U.S. Customs & Border Protection (CBP).

Despite the U.S. Supreme Court ordering the Biden administration to reinstate the policy in August 2022, no illegal aliens have been placed in the program, according to CBP statistics.

Roy said Congress’s “default position” should be “operational control of the border” but his measure has drawn fierce opposition from a coalition of 253 nongovernmental organizations who say it would “shut our border to all asylum-seekers, no matter how strong their cases might be.”

If adopted, the coalition said in a letter to Congress, the policy would “return refugees of all nationalities and ages, including children, directly to harm and death.”

‘Credible Fear’ Claims Clogging System

But Chmielenski said the asylum system, as currently interpreted, is broken and should be scrapped until Congress addresses comprehensive immigration reform.

“People can claim as a first step ‘credible fear’ of returning to their country. For the most part, [immigration officials] accept illegal aliens’ claims at face value and put them in asylum proceedings,” he said.

As a result, “there are more than 1 million of these claims on the docket—a 1 million-claim backlog—and a five- to 10-year wait to get before an immigration judge.”

What makes the policy so frustrating, he said, is a majority of those claiming “credible fear” as a reason for staying in the United States are rejected once they get before an immigration judge—if they show up.

House Republicans must end this “catch-and-release” and “limit the Biden administration’s use of advance parole,“ Chmielenski said, by restoring the Trump administration policy “to make them wait in Mexico.”

NumbersUSA maintains Roy’s bill “is a good start but definitely not the gold standard” of legislation it wants to be enacted, Chmielenski said.

When asked what the “gold standard” would be, he said, “One of the significant things that the bill does not deal with is the whole issue with asylum,” which Roy insists will remain intact as currently defined.

Adopt ‘Legal Workforce Act’ ASAP

Rep. Ken Calvert’s (R-Calif.) proposed ‘Legal Workforce Act’ has the support of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, National Restaurant Association, and National Home Builders Association. Alex Wong/Getty Images

Another immigration bill that NumbersUSA supports is Rep. Ken Calvert’s (R-Calif.) proposed Legal Workforce Act, which would “make mandatory and permanent requirements related to using an electronic employment eligibility verification system.”

HR 319, which has six co-sponsors, is to be heard before the House Judiciary Committee, the Ways and Means Committee, and the Education and the Workforce Committee. No hearing dates are set.

“American jobs should only go to people legally authorized to work in our country,“ Calvert said in a statement accompanying the bill’s introduction. ”The passage of the ‘Legal Workforce Act’ would represent a crucial step towards fixing our broken immigration system. Until we have a mandatory workforce verification system–like E-Verify–in place, immigrants will have an incentive to come into our country through illegal means. We want and need immigrants to come to our nation to contribute to our economic success, but we must also remain a sovereign nation governed by the rule of law.”

Chmielenski said Calvert’s proposed Legal Workforce Act has “actually been endorsed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Restaurant Association, and National Home Builders Association. These are organizations that tend to oppose additional mandates on employers.”

Right now, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 22 states impose some form of “mandatory E-Verify rather than just requiring I-9,” he said, which puts the onus on employers to “become document experts. E-Verify is a touchy subject in the states but [mandatory E-Verify] would replace a patchwork of laws from state-to-state and go a long way” to addressing the nation’s immigration issues.

Such a measure “has wide support from a vast majority of Americans” and “businesses themselves support one uniform law rather than having to play by different rules” in different states,” Chmielenski said.

Ultimately, NumbersUSA wants Congress to engage in comprehensive immigration reform, which hasn’t been addressed since 1986 under the Reagan administration, he said.

But first things first, especially when confronted with a border crisis and what’s politically feasible in the here and now, Chmielenski said, lauding House Republicans for “at least saying  they will make this issue a priority.”

Essentially, Roy’s bill “puts a marker out there and says we are taking this seriously. If you ask voters around the country what steps need to be taken to end the border crisis, the vast majority say if somebody crosses the border illegally, they should be detained” or turned away, he said.