If the goal was to entice undeserving applicants, you couldn’t design a worse combination of policy and resources. In comparison, the bipartisan proposal is designed to deny more cases at the initial stage and get final decisions on all cases in a matter of months.

For immigration hardliners, the moment of leverage had finally arrived: More enforcement without amnesty. However, instead of seizing this likely once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, House Republicans and former President Trump argued that the bill was not the hardliner wish list they preferred and successfully convinced most Senate Republicans to block the bill.

This one-sided deal that favors Republican enforcement policy is unlikely to ever reappear. There has never been another moment this century when Democrats agreed to enforcement legislation without meaningful legalization provisions. Nor have they ever agreed to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to anywhere near the level needed to locate and deport millions of individuals already in the country illegally.

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    210 months ago

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    As part of a broader spending bill to provide assistance to Ukraine and Israel, the Biden administration proposed significant new funding for immigration enforcement along the southern border.

    When congressional Republicans proposed adding major changes to asylum standards and other provisions to crack down on the flow of undocumented migrants, for the first time in 20 years, congressional Democrats and a Democratic president agreed to support enforcement legislation without adding legalization provisions.

    Worse, a shortage of immigration judges and related court infrastructure means those eventual denials are coming a half-decade after arrival.

    Nor have they ever agreed to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to anywhere near the level needed to locate and deport millions of individuals already in the country illegally.

    Conservatives holding out for a better outcome are ignoring recent history that Democratic presidents have won the popular vote in every election this century except for one while congressional control has been narrow and divided.

    C. Stewart Verdery Jr. served as assistant secretary for Homeland Security in the George W. Bush administration and as general counsel to the Senate Republican Whip.


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