This appears to be the week in which Senate negotiators will issue compromise legislation that provides new funding for Ukraine, Israel, the border, and other priorities—while meeting Republican demands that it change U.S. law to restrict asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border.
“We do have a bipartisan deal. We’re finishing the text right now,” lead Democratic negotiator Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Connecticut) told CNN. “We are sort of finalizing the last pieces of text right now. This bill could be ready to be on the floor of the United States Senate next week.”
Media accounts say that the negotiators have agreed to:
- Automatic Title 42-style expulsions of would-be asylum seekers, a “shutdown of the border,” when a day’s migrant apprehensions between ports of entry exceed a seven-day average of 5,000 or 8,500 on a single day, as often happens; there would be discretionary authority to suspend asylum when the average hits 4,000. Once that threshold is crossed, “migrants would be expelled indefinitely until crossings dipped below 3,750 per day, which would end the expulsion authority period,” the Washington Post explained.
As with Title 42, exceptions would only be for people who can prove fear of torture if returned, under the Convention Against Torture. There is no word on whether Mexico would agree to accept expelled individuals. - A higher “credible fear” standard that asylum seekers would have to meet in screening interviews with asylum officers, if they are among the segment of migrants placed in expedited removal proceedings (roughly 25,000 per month in recent months, but likely to increase).
- Those who pass these screenings would have greater access to work permits inside the United States.
- Unspecified changes to the asylum process “with the goal of reducing the average time for an asylum claim to be resolved from several years to 6 months,” according to the Washington Post—a goal that would require either drastic curbs on due process or significant new investment in the asylum system.
- According to CBS News, the deal includes Democratic priorities like “50,000 new family and employment-based immigrant visas, offer[ing] permanent residency to tens of thousands of Afghans brought to the U.S. following the fall of Kabul in 2021, and provid[ing] immigration status to the children of H-1B visa holders.”
The agreement does not appear to include Republican demands for limits on the presidential authority to grant humanitarian parole to migrants at the border. The agreement would not touch the CBP One program allowing 1,450 asylum seekers per day to make appointments at ports of entry.
In a White House statement and in remarks given in South Carolina, President Joe Biden voiced enthusiasm for the Senate deal. Of the Title 42-style expulsion authority, he said “If that bill were the law today, I’d shut down the border right now and fix it quickly.”
“There’s just one thing” about the Senate’s legislative deal, wrote Stef Kight at Axios: “Their plan is all but dead.” The House of Representatives’ Republican majority, prodded by Donald Trump, is lining up to oppose the deal because they claim it doesn’t go far enough to restrict migration. Trump called it a “horrible open borders betrayal of America” and said he’d be happy to take the blame if it fails.
Even before the language is public, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) has called the Senate’s bill “dead on arrival” in his chamber. “According to reports, the Senate’s pending proposal would expressly allow as many as 150,000 illegal crossings each month (1.8 million per year) before any new ‘shutdown’ authority could be used. At that point, America will have already been surrendered,” Johnson said.
Oklahoma’s Republican party voted Saturday to censure the Senate Republicans’ chief negotiator, James Lankford (R-Oklahoma).
- Camilo Montoya-Galvez, Margaret Brennan, Richard Escobedo, “Biden and Senators on Verge of Striking Immigration Deal Aimed at Clamping Down on Illegal Border Crossings” (CBS News, January 28, 2024).
- Amy B Wang, “Lankford Defends Bipartisan Border Security Bill After Attacks by Trump, Gop” (The Washington Post, January 28, 2024).
- Priscilla Alvarez, “Key Border Deal Negotiator Says Bipartisan Agreement Has Been Reached, Could Be Ready in the Coming Days” (CNN, January 28, 2024).
- Joe Biden, “Statement From President Joe Biden on the Bipartisan Senate Border Security Negotiations” (The White House, January 26, 2024).
- Colleen Long, Meg Kinnard, Zeke Miller, “Biden Offers Fresh Assurances He Would Shut Down Border ‘Right Now’ if Congress Sends Him a Deal” (Associated Press, Associated Press, January 27, 2024).
- Karoun Demirjian, “Biden Vows Border Shutdown, Pressing Congress to Pass Immigration Deal” (The New York Times, January 26, 2024).
- Nick Miroff, Toluse Olorunnipa, “Biden Pledge to Shut Down Border Points to Policy Shortfalls” (The Washington Post, January 27, 2024).
- Liz Goodwin, Toluse Olorunnipa, “Biden Vows to ‘Shut Down’ an Overwhelmed Border if Senate Deal Passes” (The Washington Post, January 26, 2024).
- Costas Pitas, Nandita Bose, Ted Hesson, “Biden Backs Senate Border Deal, Vows to ‘Shut Down the Border’ When Overwhelmed” (Reuters, Reuters, January 27, 2024).
- Burgess Everett, Myah Ward, “Biden Says He’ll Shut Down the Border if Deal Gives Him Authority” (Politico, January 26, 2024).
- Priscilla Alvarez, “Biden Seizes on Tougher Border Measures as He Tries to Fend Off Trump Attacks” (CNN, January 27, 2024).
- Stephen Groves, “Biden Urges Congress to Embrace Border Bill. But House Speaker Suggests It May Be ‘Dead on Arrival’” (Associated Press, Associated Press, January 26, 2024).
- Stef W. Kight, “Senators Zero in on High Stakes Border Deal” (Axios, January 26, 2024).
- Stef W. Kight, “Trump, House Republicans Plot to Kill Border Deal” (Axios, January 29, 2024).
- Burgess Everett, Giselle Ruhiyyih Ewing, “Johnson Throws Cold Water on Border Deal” (Politico, January 27, 2024).
- Isaac Arnsdorf, “Trump Brags About Efforts to Stymie Border Talks: ‘Please Blame It on Me’” (The Washington Post, January 27, 2024).
- Filip Timotija, “Mike Johnson Denounces Biden’s Support of Senate-Backed Border Deal” (The Hill, January 27, 2024).
- Briana Reilly, “Johnson Calls Senate Border Deal ‘Dead on Arrival’ in House” (Roll Call, January 26, 2024).
- Filip Timotija, “Trump Slams Border Deal as ‘Catastrophe Waiting to Happen’” (The Hill, January 27, 2024).
- Khaleda Rahman, “Oklahoma Republicans Censure Senator Over Border Deal” (Newsweek, January 28, 2024).
- “Editorial: Gop’s Bow to Donald Trump Risks Ukraine Funding, Border Security” (The Dallas Morning News, January 26, 2024).
- Brian Bennett, Nik Popli, “Border Crisis Likely to Get Worse After Trump Blows Up Deal” (Time, January 27, 2024).
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) updated its dataset of migration at the U.S.-Mexico border through December, showing a record 302,034 migrant encounters border-wide in December. 52,249 encounters took place at ports of entry, and 249,785 people ended up in Border Patrol custody after crossing between ports of entry. The top nationalities were Mexico (23%), Venezuela (19%), Guatemala (12%), Honduras (7%) and Colombia (6%). WOLA’s Adam Isacson posted nine charts illustrating the data.
During January, migrant arrivals have dropped to about half of December’s rate.
- “Charts: Migration at the U.S.-Mexico Border through December 2023” (adamisacson.com, January 28, 2024).
- “CBP Releases December 2023 Monthly Update” (U.S. Customs and Border Protection, January 26, 2024).
- Anna Giaritelli, “Migrant Encounters at Border Surpassed All-Time Record in December: 371,000 People” (The Washington Examiner, January 26, 2024).
- “Illegal Border Crossings From Mexico Reach Highest on Record in December Before January Lull” (Associated Press, Associated Press, January 26, 2024).
- Lauren Irwin, “Biden Administration Confirms Record 300k Encounters at Border” (The Hill, January 26, 2024).
The House Homeland Security Committee’s Republican majority is moving ahead with the impeachment of DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on two counts, the second-ever impeachment of a Cabinet official and the first since 1876. House Republicans accuse Mayorkas of willfully refusing to secure the border and control migration.
The Committee is to meet on Tuesday to launch impeachment proceedings; while they certainly lack the votes to remove Mayorkas in the Democratic-majority Senate, it is not even clear whether they have the necessary bare majority in the House.
A Wall Street Journal column by Michael Chertoff, George W. Bush’s second Homeland Security secretary, urged House Republicans not to pursue impeachment.
- “UPDATED ADVISORY: Homeland Security Committee Markup of Mayorkas Impeachment Articles” (Homeland Security Committee Republicans, U.S. House of Representatives, January 28, 2024).
- Rebecca Santana, “House Gop Releases Impeachment Articles in Bid to Oust Homeland Security’s Mayorkas Over the Border” (Associated Press, Associated Press, January 28, 2024).
- Michael Chertoff, “Don’t Impeach Alejandro Mayorkas” (The Wall Street Journal, January 28, 2024).
- “Chairman Green in New Letter to Ranking Member Thompson: “I Would Encourage You to Engage Meaningfully in Your Oversight Duties as a Member of This Committee”” (Committee on Homeland Security Republicans, U.S. House of Representatives, January 26, 2024).
- Rebecca Beitsch, “Gop, Dhs Clash Over Obstruction Claims Ahead of Mayorkas Impeachment” (The Hill, January 26, 2024).
About 8,000 people migrating through Mexico each month pay smugglers up to $40,000 for an “amparo package” that promises that they can cross the country, and reach the U.S. border, with “free transit” and no concern about deportation—a guarantee that relies on a green light from corrupt migration officials.
- “Migrantes Pagan a «Coyotes» Hasta $40.000 en Amparos al Cruzar de Mexico a Eeuu” (Tal Cual (Venezuela), January 27, 2024).
- Said Betanzos, “Traficantes Dan Servicio Vip para Cruzar de Manera Irregular de Mexico” (Milenio (Mexico), January 27, 2024).
A right-wing “Take Our Border Back” truck convoy plans to gather in Eagle Pass, Texas, on February 3.
- David Gilbert, “Far-Right Extremists Are Organizing an Armed Convoy to the Texas Border” (Wired, January 26, 2024).
- Kate Briquelet, “The Maga Truckers Are Back—and Heading to the Border” (The Daily Beast, January 26, 2024).
- Sarah Rumpf-Whitten, “Texas-Bound ‘Take Our Border Back’ Convoy to ‘Shed Light’ on Migrant Crisis, ‘Send a Message’ to Leaders” (Fox News, January 27, 2024).
Analyses and Feature Stories
The New Yorker published an excerpt from an upcoming book about migration from reporter Jonathan Blitzer, telling the story of a Honduran woman whom the Trump administration separated from her sons in 2017, when agents in Border Patrol’s El Paso Sector were carrying out family separations on a trial basis.
- Jonathan Blitzer, “‘Do I Have to Come Here Injured or Dead?’” (The New Yorker, January 28, 2024).
University of Texas law professor Steve Vladeck explained to CNN that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) is not defying the Supreme Court’s January 22 decision requiring him to allow Border Patrol agents to cut through concertina wire that state officials have laid along the Rio Grande. However, Abbott “is interfering with federal authority to a degree we haven’t seen from state officials since the desegregation cases of the 1950s and 1960s.”
Texas is seeking to have today’s more conservative Supreme Court undo earlier rulings giving the federal government control over immigration policy, wrote Ian Millhiser at Vox.
- Zachary B. Wolf, “What Texas Is (and Is Not) Doing to Defy a Supreme Court Setback” (CNN, January 27, 2024).
- Ian Millhiser, “The Legal Fight Over Whether Texas Can Seize Control of the Border, Explained” (Vox, January 27, 2024).
Amid the state-federal dispute in Texas, “Republicans and conservative media have alluded to the prospect of the situation forcing soldiers to choose between loyalty to their state and loyalty to their country—even proposing that matters could turn confrontational and violent. Some have invoked another civil war,” noted Aaron Blake at the Washington Post.
- Aaron Blake, “Texas Border Dispute Breeds Loose Talk of Civil War, Resistance on Right” (The Washington Post, January 26, 2024).
The ACLU voiced concern that the Biden administration’s request for additional border spending would expand ICE’s Family Expedited Removal Management (FERM) program, a high-tech alternative-to-detention program applied to asylum-seeking families placed in a fast track adjudication process. FERM “normalizes 24-hour suspicionless surveillance,” the organization contended.
- Naureen Shah, “What’s Hiding in the Immigration & Border Deal? More Mass Surveillance” (American Civil Liberties Union, January 26, 2024).