Harris and the Dems Have No Border Credibility

Although I am not a betting man, I would wager that the vast majority of American citizens cannot wait for this election cycle to be complete. Those who pay the closest attention to campaign messaging are not snowed by the avalanche of policy half-truths, innuendos, and lies of omission emanating from Vice President Kamala Harris and her acolytes.

Early in her current electoral quest, Harris put out a statement regarding the hot-button border/immigration issue that read “Congress must act. Unfortunately, we have too often been met with those who sought to play political games instead of participating in solutions.”

I do not know if Harris has ever seriously reflected on this border and immigration statement, but should she do so, her own conclusions might be quite alarming.

One particular immigration misrepresentation by Harris and her like-minded Senate colleagues is that the Republicans have been AWOL when it comes to advancing serious border initiatives. There is ample evidence to the contrary.

Democrat Tricks on Border Bills

There were two distinct initiatives by Republicans that ran completely counter to the “playing games instead of participating in solutions” assertion. The first was that Sen. James Lankford did propose legislation, which, after negotiation with the Democrat majority, was very deeply flawed. It allowed up to an additional two million immigrants to enter the U.S per year; that was defeated on a procedural motion in the Senate.

The second was a Democrat tactical ploy she also fails to mention. The House passed HR 2, the Secure the Border Act, in May 2023 and was sent to the Senate. So, when the Lankford bill was introduced, the White House and Senate Democrats came up with a scheme to stop a House/Senate border bill conference and at the same time reframe the immigration deliberations. By stopping any border bill in the Senate, the Democrats sought to hang the border crisis around former President Donald Trump’s neck, calculating that this immigration mess could be turned into a winning campaign issue for them.

During debate on Lankford’s bill, Democrat senators stated that they and the Biden–Harris administration were, of course, for securing the border, but still very much committed to being pro-immigrant. In stark contrast, they asserted that Trump was only focused on mass deportations and, as a xenophobe, stopping immigration altogether. Consequently, they argued, it was Trump’s behind-the-scenes maneuvering that killed Lankford’s immigration bill.

Indeed, a conference on the border legislation could not be scheduled since the Lankford legislation or a substitute was never passed; the bill was then exiled to the Senate “calendar,” where it has been parked ever since.

What is never discussed by partisans or the media is that if Lankford’s Senate bill had been passed by the Democrat-controlled Senate, a conference committee would have taken up both the House and Senate versions of the border legislation. In that scenario, it is likely it would have forced a Senate compromise on the Democrat demands of allowing an additional two million unvetted immigrants entry into the U.S. That provision alone killed any chance of Republican votes, much to the delight of the Democrats and to the detriment of most American citizens.

What Republicans Wanted for the Border

Here are some of the most salient provisions of HR 2 that the Senate Democrats sidestepped by killing the Senate bill.

The bill required the Department of Homeland Security to resume and complete construction of the border wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

The proposal required detention of those who attempted to enter the U.S. outside of designated ports of entry and it ended the “catch and release” program.

It called for an increase in the number of Border Patrol agents to at least 22,000. Their focus would be changed from expediting processing of immigrants for entry to the U.S. to assessing asylum claims. They were to restrict entry to those who were able to prove they were “more likely than not” to qualify for asylum because they were fearing persecution.

Thus, Borer Patrol agents would be charged with evaluating well-rehearsed, uniform “fear” declarations that cartel members had immigrants practice prior to approaching the border. Many border personnel have been quoted as saying that, in their experience, an exceedingly minute percentage of immigrants were actually motivated by these fears. (READ MORE: Unchecked Immigration Has Transformed America)

Most were focused on the magnet of enhancing their economic well-being, whether through U.S. government support programs or by attaining illegal employment. But under the House provisions, U.S. businesses would have been required to use E-Verify to check the work eligibility of newly arrived immigrants for those seeking employment.

Additionally, the House bill would have reinstated the Remain in Mexico policy, which mandated asylum seekers deemed reasonably safe from persecution or violence to be sent back to Mexico to await adjudication of their claim. And it would have granted access to information that ensured Border Patrol access to the criminal history records of the illegals’ home countries prior to entry.

It seems evident that the House measures represented a stringent, enforcement-focused approach to border security and immigration control, which is why it was never pushed to a conference by the Senate Democrats. They had no appetite to reconcile the status quo brought about by President Joe Biden’s rescinding of 94 related executive orders, which grew the illegal U.S. population by millions.

It is hard for most Americans to conceive of the motivation behind the lack of effective illegal immigration controls. The answer, despite the vehement protestations of the open border crowd, is a lust for political power, which in the U.S. comes by way of the ballot box.

But how can noncitizens possibly gain access to the ballot box?

Illegals Vote

By law, only U.S. citizens are allowed to vote in federal elections. But it has been clearly demonstrated in a number of states that illegals certainly do participate in elections. After all, the vast majority of states do not require any proof of citizenship to vote. None.

Thus, a peer-reviewed study in 2014 estimated that about 25 percent of noncitizens were registered to vote in 2008 and 2010. Moreover, they suggest that as many as 2.8 million of them actually voted. (READ MORE: Non-Citizens Have Been Voting Since 2008)

What’s more, the states that have enacted “Motor Voter” laws only require an applicant to check a box stating that they are legal citizens in order to be registered; it is based on the honor system and is generally never questioned.

If that is not enough, there have already been moves in Democrat-run states and cities to “legally” allow noncitizens to vote in elections. Municipalities in New York, California, the District of Columbia, and Vermont have now granted noncitizens (including illegals) access to voting in state and local elections (though the courts, in some instances, have intervened).

Initiatives of this sort will undoubtedly grow unless Congress intercedes. But intercede it must if we hope to retain the bedrock principle of the consent of the governed.

Finally, it should be noted that the Democrats under Senate rules certainly had the right to slow-walk border bills to a conference committee for negotiation. But by doing so, they well knew that they were submerging the House border bill deep into amber so it could not emerge to bring about border and immigration solutions on their watch.

Marc E. Zimmerman is a former legislative assistant to a member of the U.S. Congress.

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