GOP senators unveil border alternative
A group of Republican senators on Thursday unveiled their answer to President Donald Trump’s proposed border wall: a $15 billion venture to step up multifaceted border security without choking off trade.
The legislation, fronted by Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, comes as a rebuke to the president for his focus on getting a border wall built and getting Mexico to pay for it.
It also comes as a rejection of the House GOP leaders, who recently pledged to fully fund Trump’s wall, approving the first $1.6 billion installment on it as part of the House’s recently-passed defense authorization bill.
“Border security is not a one-size-fits-all proposition; we need an approach that will work at each unique place along the U.S.-Mexico border,” Cornyn said Thursday.
The senators behind the legislation framed it a chance to “regain the public’s confidence” and restore the public “trust deficit” in Congress after several rocky legislative months.
When Cornyn unveiled the bill Thursday, he was joined by Republican Sens. John Barrassoof Wyoming, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Thom Tillis of North Carolina.
Their proposal authorizes $15 billion over four years to pay for border security infrastructure that includes a potential wall system, fences, levees, surveillance technology and an increase in Border Patrol agents, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and immigration court prosecutors and judges. Those judges would be required to hear cases of unaccompanied minors in an expedited fashion.
Cornyn declined to rule out the president procuring money from Mexico to foot the bill, though he remarked that “we are used to Congress appropriating the money.”