Republican Tennessee Rep. Tim Burchett told CNN’s Jim Acosta on Friday that the host knows “good and well” that a February Senate border bill would have been disastrous if enacted.
The Emergency National Security Supplemental Appropriations Act included additional funds for hiring more immigration judges as well as handling foreign nationals illegally in the United States, but Republicans argued it would not meaningfully reduce illegal immigration.
Acosta on “CNN Newsroom With Jim Acosta” characterized the bill as a “bipartisan effort to crack down on the border,” but Burchett said it was “a bad deal” and that the host understands it would not have been effective.
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“That was a lawyer employment bill,” Burchett said. “All it said was when they get to the point of 5,000 people a day, Jim, now, 4,999 illegals a day is okay,” Burchett started before Acosta cut him off, asking, “But why not do something if you have a bipartisan effort?”
Burchett disputed that it was bipartisan, with Acosta noting that Republican Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma was the chief GOP negotiator of the bill.
“He’s a good guy, but you know good and well it was catch and release and look what it would have done,” Burchett said. “It just employed more attorneys to allow illegals to get into the country and you know good and well when they get a court date, two years out, that dagnammit, they’re not coming back to court, Jim, come on.”
“This thing was a disaster waiting to happen and it was a terrible piece of legislation,” Burchett added. “It would not have done anything, but hire more lawyers and they want to just to put it into law that we’re going to allow 5,000 illegals a day over the border and that’s all that bill would’ve done.”
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The bill included a provision that the border can remain open if under 5,000 migrants enter per day. Authorities would be able to remove migrants without proceedings if the week-long average of crossings surged above that number.
Senate Republicans blocked the bill in February as they did not believe it was designed to secure the border.
President Joe Biden recently unveiled an immigration executive order after months of saying he could not take any action to mitigate the border crisis. The executive action pauses new asylum requests once the number of migrants crossing into the U.S. reaches a weekly average of 2,500.
Over the course of Biden's presidency, there have been six million or more southern border encounters. After he announced the executive order, the president faced pushback from both sides of the aisle.
The order does not seem to have impacted the pace of illegal immigration thus far, according to sector reports, internal data, and local officials, as the Daily Caller News Foundation reported.
First published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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