Trump's border security plans face potential obstacle in Senate parliamentarian [View all]

Source: The Hill

11/11/24 6:00 AM ET


President-elect Trump’s GOP allies in Congress want to jam tough immigration and border security reforms through the Senate using a special fast track known as budget reconciliation, but face a major obstacle in Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough.

Shutting down the huge flow of migrants across the U.S.-Mexico border is one of Trump’s top priorities, but Republican legislation that would make it harder for migrants to claim asylum and roll back protections for migrant minors under the Flores settlement faces a Democratic filibuster in the Senate. This has prompted a discussion among conservatives in the Senate and House over moving as aggressive a border-security package as possible under budget reconciliation, which would allow it to pass with a simple majority through the Senate.

Getting that done would depend on whether the Senate parliamentarian rules that it complies with the chamber’s Byrd Rule, which requires that legislation produce a change in spending or revenues and have a budgetary impact that’s not merely incidental to the policy change.

A Senate GOP aide warned that that while funding for the border wall and more Border Patrol agents would easily be allowed in a budget reconciliation bill under the Senate’s rules, reforms to the nation’s asylum and parole laws, which Republicans say the Biden administration used to allow millions of migrants into the country, may not pass muster. “Some of it could be possible, but a lot of it could fall to the merely-incidental rule,” a Senate GOP aide said.

Read more: https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/4983010-trump-border-security-reform/