Q&A of the Day – Why Does Border Patrol Back the Border Bill?
Each day I feature a listener question sent by one of these methods.
Email: brianmudd@iheartmedia.com
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Today’s Entry: Good day Brian, I am trying to get a grip on this border bill. I appreciate your analysis. Why do you think the Border Patrol Officers support the bill?
Bottom Line: I appreciate the question, it’s one I’ve been asked by multiple people over the past couple of days as the text of the 370-page so-called bi-partisan border bill finally became public and the rhetorical battle over its potential merits commenced. That battle included an unusual dividing line. The National Border Patrol Council, which is the official union of the Border Patrol and the Presidential candidate they’ve endorsed, Donald Trump. In calling for its rejection by members of Congress on Monday, the former and perhaps future President of the United States had this to say: Only a fool, or a Radical Left Democrat, would vote for this horrendous Border Bill. The Border Patrol doesn’t have a vote on the matter however Trump’s implication would suggest that the Border Patrol’s endorsement of the bill is foolish – given that they’re obviously not radical left democrats. So, in addressing today’s question why is it that the Border Patrol has done this? First let’s start with what they had to say about the bill.
In supporting the proposed border legislation, the NBPC put out this note:
Current Law Facts:
- Zero caps on how many people we can take into custody. If 12k people cross the border illegally, we arrest 12k people.
- As per the Supreme Court, prosecutorial discretion is legal and an Admin can release as many people as they want pending immigration/asylum proceedings.
- Based upon the current law the Admin is releasing more than 85% of illegal border crossers. Including military aged single adults.
Border Security Bill
- Puts a cap of how many people we take into custody. Once we arrest 5,000. The border is shut down. Huge improvement.
- Adults without children are not eligible for release. Huge improvement
- Credible Fear bar is raised to Trump era PACR and HARP programs. Huge improvement
- In short, the number of people eligible for release decreases exponentially. Huge improvement.
So that’s the border patrol union’s public take on things. Now, given that based on my analysis of the bill, I’ve come out publicly against the legislation, I’ll offer the counterpoint. All of that and more could be done immediately without legislation. President Biden eliminated the Trump border policy with a series of three executive orders. Two that came on his first day in office and the third on his twelfth day in office. That President Biden is only willing to slightly reign in what’s currently happening at the southern border, as cited in the union’s note, if the legislation is signed tells you he’s not interested in fixing the southern border crisis. That matters for one very important reason. We already have laws on the books, never mind a constitutional oath, pertaining to the border that are being ignored by the Biden administration. If the Biden administration won’t enforce existing border policy, why should we think that he’d suddenly follow a new law pertaining to border policy? But that’s not the strongest argument. A case could still be made that the policy would be worth pursuing with that consideration in mind. The bigger issue from an analytical perspective is that it’s a scam.
On Tuesday I cited this in my Top 3 Takeaways: The border bill is a scam. Starting with the fact that it’s not a border bill. Call me crazy but wouldn’t you expect that a much publicized and long-awaited so-called border bill would actually be about addressing our southern border and related illegal immigration crisis? What percentage of spending in the alleged border bill would you expect to go towards securing the border...or anything related to immigration for that matter? I’m guessing that it would be more than 17%. But that’s exactly what the number, at $20 billion proposed, represents in the bill – only 17%. So, what is this bill really about? Funding international wars. The biggest beneficiary of the proposed legislation would be Ukraine which still hasn’t accounted for how any of the money we’ve forked over to date has been spent but that would stand to rake in $60 billion or more than half of everything that’s called for in the legislation. The bill also would allocate $14 billion to Israel to aid their effort against Hamas in their war but then, turns around and hands $10 billion over to the Palestinians – which no doubt would flow to Hamas. So, I guess the idea is that we give money to both sides so they can attempt to destroy each other with our money. And then, because again, it’s only money we don’t have – there's nearly $5 billion that we’d fork over to Indo-Pacific countries because I guess it’s Tuesday and that’s just what we’re expected to do.
So, from my perspective that’s the critical flaw of the border bill. 83% of the legislation isn’t a border bill. It’s a Biden administration wish list of foreign giveaways with money we don’t have. Now perhaps the Border Patrol doesn’t care about the implications of the policy beyond the small aspect of it that would apply to them. That’s possible. But there’s also another explanation that almost certainly factors in highly with the border patrol union’s support of the legislation. And it’s also something I addressed on Tuesday when I said this: They’ll say that this will support hiring hundreds more Border Patrol agents and officers. And that’s true. But would their mandate be to shut down the southern border keeping illegal immigrants on the other side of it? Nope. Not at all. The bill calls for the extra personnel to be in place to assist with “evaluating (asylum) claims”. In other words, it would have the potential to release even more asylum seekers even faster into the interior. The key in that explanation isn’t what the additional Border Patrol agents would be tasked with doing under the legislation. It’s simply that there would be more of them. The Border Patrol Union is a union after all. When has a union ever wanted fewer members? While they’ve not publicly spoken to this... The National Border Patrol Council almost certainly wants the proposed legislation because it would mean more union members paying dues. That reality likely colors much of their thinking on this. As always there are two sides to stories and one side to facts. Now you have the stories and the facts.