GOP Rep. Says Her New Bill Would Bring the Border Under Control — And That’s Why It Won’t Pass This Congress

As a new congresswoman from Arizona during the last surge of migrants at the southwest border, Debbie Lesko was looking for solutions to the humanitarian crisis.

Lesko, who won her seat in a special election in 2018, turned to top U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Department of Homeland Security leaders for advice. Their ideas turned into six bills – “the six bills that they told me they needed the most,” she said.

Ultimately, her efforts went nowhere in the Democrat-controlled House. But with a new crisis at the southwest border – Border Patrol officers apprehended more than 97,000 migrants in February alone, including 9,297 kids – Lesko has packaged her six bills into one “Border Crisis Prevention Act,” that she believes could help lessen the pressure on the border. Among its provisions, Lesko’s bill offers legitimate asylum-seekers an easier path to safety, while cracking down on people making frivolous asylum claims just to get released into the country.

The bill, introduced in February, still is a long shot to pass, or to even get a hearing in the House. But Lesko said she believes it’s important to keep introducing proposals that could help.

“Sometimes in Congress you have to plant the flag,” Lesko said. “It takes a while to get your legislation passed, but you plant the flag, like I’m the person that’s interested in this issue.”

In order to cut down on immigrants making frivolous asylum claims – the vast majority of asylum claims are ultimately denied – Lesko’s bill would increase the “credible fear” standard. “What Customs and Border Protection and DHS officials told me is that the standards set in law were so low that just about anybody could pass the first hurdle. Then these people are released into the United States,” Lesko said, adding that many don’t show up for future court hearings.

According to the bill, anyone who is determined to be knowingly making a frivolous claim for asylum would be permanently ineligible for asylum.

The bill would authorize the DHS secretary to designate “safe third countries” – countries other than the U.S. where asylum-seekers could make claims and wait for them to be heard. It would allow them to avoid paying coyotes and making the dangerous trek to the border.

“If it’s a legitimate asylum-seeker that’s actually in fear of death and retribution from their country, they could go to a safe country,” Lesko said. “They wouldn’t have to travel all the way here, and then apply for it here, wait for their case to come up.”

The bill also would increase funding for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to increase bed space, approve 100 new immigration judges to lessen the backlog in the court system, and make it easier for criminal aliens to be removed from the country.

Lesko knows her legislation has almost zero chance of passing with Democrats in charge of both houses of Congress, and with Biden as president. Congressman Jerry Nadler, the Democratic chair of the House Judiciary Committee, wouldn’t hear any of Lesko’s six bills last session, even if Lesko thought she might get some bi-partisan support for her proposal to increase the number of immigration judges. She suspects her new bill will suffer the same fate.

“The Democrats aren’t going to support this,” Lesko said. “Biden and probably 99 percent of Democrats support illegal immigrants coming into our country. I mean, they just do. And all of their policies, all of their bills say so.”

Considering how Biden campaigned on border security, Lesko says there is no reason the new surge of migrants should be a surprise to anyone. Biden promised to stop constructing the border wall, supported a pathway to citizenship and government-run health care for millions of illegal immigrants, and vowed to have generally more “humane” immigration policies. As president, Biden has ended Trump-era measures, including the “Remain in Mexico” policy, meant to deter migrants from making the dangerous trip to the U.S.

“You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know that that’s going to increase the number of people rushing to get here,” Lesko said.

Ultimately, policies and rhetoric that encourage migrants to travel to the U.S. subject them to dangerous cartels and human smugglers who will rob, rape and sometimes kill them.

“I don’t understand why my Democratic colleagues don’t see that their policies are actually hurting these people,” Lesko said. “Kids not being with their parents, just being shuffled here. Why aren’t we calling this child abuse? Why aren’t we calling this women being raped?”

“The cartels don’t give a crap about these people,” she said. “They view them as money.”