Border Enforcement

On Immigration, Praise for the Tea Party

Ted Cruz and Mike Lee, two of the standard bearers of the Tea Party movement, have introduced a series of amendments to the Senate immigration reform bill.

These amendments almost certainly won't become law, but they provide a model for opposing the impressively lax border security and employment verification enforcement provisions of Rubio/Schumer's invitation for future waves of unauthorized immigration.

As Cruz's Amendment MDM13528 reads, if the Secretary of Homeland Security does not substantially implement border security provisions within three years of the enactment of the ACT, the budget will be rapidly block granted out to border states instead. In other words, we're going to give you a ton of resources to get this done fast, but if you don't get moving, those funds will go elsewhere.

Then there are three amendments from Sen. Mike Lee, which Byron York explains at the Washington Examiner.

One of Lee's amendments deals with border security, another with E-Verify, and the third with high-skilled visas. Each is considerably simpler than the legislative language it seeks to replace, strips out numerous exceptions and exemptions, and moves up enforcement timelines.

Again, these have very little chance of becoming law, but they provide the public a clear point of clarification: the existing bill's "triggers" are a sham. There should be no provisional status until we have locked down our borders and implemented E-Verify in a satisfactory manner. Rubio and Schumer's bill doesn't do that, and we shouldn't settle for less.

Now, if we can chat about those guest worker programs...

I've requested comment from the offices of Sens. Cruz and Lee, and will update this post when I hear from them.

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Justin Green

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