Lankford’s ‘compromise’ border bill legalizes the invasion

You’ve got to hand it to Senator James Lankford (R-Okla.) and Mitch McConnell’s other lieutenants in the Senate. They really did manage to solve the illegal immigration crisis. They’re simply going to make the invasion legal.

In exchange for us agreeing to an endless flow of illegal immigrants across the southern border, Democrats will get another $60 billion for Ukraine. Some call that bipartisanship, but we call it disenfranchisement of the forgotten American who is always placed last in the ultimate abrogation of the social compact.

We have nobody to blame but ourselves. The invasion will continue and GOP treachery will accelerate until we get serious.

To understand the essential treachery of Lankford’s immigration deal, we must acknowledge that no one is allowed to crash our border under current law. In 2006, a supermajority of Congress passed the Secure Fence Act. It required the secretary of Homeland Security to “take all actions” necessary within 18 months of passage to “achieve and maintain operational control over the entire international land and maritime borders of the United States.”

The bill defined “operational control” as “the prevention of all unlawful entries into the United States, including entries by terrorists, other unlawful aliens, instruments of terrorism, narcotics, and other contraband.”

In short, the law demands that the Biden administration stop all invaders. Instead, the government works with the cartels to orchestrate a constant flow and has gone out of its way to subvert the efforts of Texas to secure its own border.

Lankford’s bill would allow the Biden administration to reap the benefits of its own crime. Vitiating current law and bringing in millions of illegal aliens, the bill would essentially allow up to 5,000 illegal aliens per day to enter the country. It explicitly grants the Homeland Security secretary authorization to provide them with work permits. In fact, page 41 of the bill stipulates that “if the alien receives a positive protection determination, the alien shall be issued employment authorization.”

Here are some of the bill’s other key provisions:

• The authority to shut off the flow after 5,000 invaders per day is countermanded by the discretionary authority accorded to Biden to suspend any emergency declaration.
• Page 27 of the bill mandates that those seeking asylum “shall be released from physical custody.” This destroys current law, which directs, “In the case of an alien who is an applicant for admission, if the examining immigration officer determines that an alien seeking admission is not clearly and beyond a doubt entitled to be admitted, the alien shall be detained for a [removal] proceeding.” The bill also would give full discretionary authority to immigration officials to detain all those presumed to be in the country illegally “pending a decision on whether the alien is to be removed.”
• In addition to weakening asylum laws by mandating that anyone with intent to declare asylum be released and given work authorization in six months, the bill would also allow the DHS secretary to grant parole to anyone with an “urgent humanitarian reason."
• The bill grants $1.29 billion for “alternatives to detention,” which would amount to a handout to the NGOs engaging in smuggling to continue harboring and facilitating the invasion.
• Further turning border agents into babysitters rather than law enforcement, the bill would mandate training for “the non-lethal use of force” and “de-escalation strategies and methods.”
• To the extent states or citizens could ever challenge Biden’s liberal asylum determinations made under this bill, all claims would be routed to the D.C. Circuit, which is about as liberal as the Ninth Circuit. This is clearly designed to take these cases away from the Texas-based Fifth Circuit.
• The bill would give the Office of Refugee Resettlement another $2.3 billion to further empower unscrupulous NGOs to colonize our communities.
• Page 149 of the bill codifies the “Flores agreement,” which incentivizes illegal aliens to traffic their kids over the border knowing that they must be released because the DHS lacks the facilities mandated for them under the 1997 lawsuit settlement. This has been a big incentive for the invasion not just under Biden but also under Trump in 2018 and 2019.
• For reasons only Allah knows, while we are dealing with the border flow, Lankford’s bill would invite in another 50,000 people on green cards. It would also expand worker visa programs and bring in even more Afghan refugees on top of the 100,000 Biden already admitted.

Any “good” in this bill is worthless because Lankford’s “compromise” undermines existing law, which every Democrat since Bill Clinton has been ignoring anyway.

What’s more, the new emergency powers the bill would enact are set to expire 270 days after the law takes effect. That effectively bars the next president from using anything good in the law, while being hamstrung by the law’s bad provisions.

So the bill concedes the border to the left’s priorities and bequeaths the Democrats $60 billion in additional funding for Ukraine, including $300 million for the Ukrainian police. It also includes $10 billion for Hamas or, as they say, “Gaza humanitarian aid.”

Undoubtedly, Lankford’s bill will be dead on arrival in the House. Nevertheless, it stands as a testament to the treachery that runs wide and deep among numerous red-state Republican senators. It is also underscores the fecklessness of the conservative movement in vetting candidates in states like Oklahoma. No matter what Lankford does, no matter how many principles he betrays, he will continue to enjoy establishment support.

I warned against Lankford’s ascendancy from the House to the Senate when Tom Coburn resigned 10 years ago and was quoted in The Hill urging a more conservative House member to run.

Unfortunately, the entire party circled the wagons around Lankford, and few others raised concerns, thereby clearing the field for him. I then warned that he was working on amnesty throughout his first term.

Sadly, despite years of treachery, Lankford was re-elected in 2022 with 64% of the vote. Why was there no market for a primary challenger? Because Donald Trump gave him a gratuitously Orwellian endorsement, referring to him as “strong on the border and tough on crime,” when the opposite is true on both accounts.

We have nobody to blame but ourselves. The invasion will continue and GOP treachery will accelerate until we get serious and focus on the primaries slated to begin next month.