House Republicans folded in language from a bill they passed in May into their stopgap funding bill that would put an end to President Joe Biden's "catch and release" policy at the border, Breitbart reported Monday.
The continuing resolution would fund the government through the end of next month while also introducing parts of HR 2 — "Secure the Border Act" bill — that would put the Democrat-held Senate and White House to the test.
"If the existing CR passes the House, then the Senate and White House must decide: Do we want to shut down the border crisis and fund the government or shut down the government in order to keep the border wide open?" R.J. Hauman, president of the National Immigration Center for Enforcement (NICE), told Breitbart.
The report comes amid a battle within the Republican conference about whether it will pass the spending bills, with a deadline of Sept. 30, in order to avoid a government shutdown. The HR 2 language could be an attempt by House leadership to sway the hardliners into passing the stopgap bill.
The language in the continuing resolution would block federal funds from being used for an array of Biden's border practices. Among other things, the administration would no longer be able to use federal funds to transport migrants to wherever they want to go while waiting for their asylum hearing.
The Department of Homeland Security inspector general said last week that "catch and release" allows more than 60,000 illegals into the U.S. each month. Further, DHS has lost track of 177,000 illegals, in part because they give fake addresses, sometimes the same fake one over and over again.
When pushed by the inspector general to ensure valid addresses were given, DHS responded that the inspector general "ignores legal and operational constraints that make it impossible" to do that.
The continuing resolution would also block federal funding from being used for the administration's prosecutorial discretion, one of the pipelines used to allow migrants into the interior of the country.
The continuing resolution language comes 10 days after a report that Biden administration was mulling a change in policy to keep migrants in the border town they crossed over in while they wait out the asylum process.
Mark Swanson ✉
Mark Swanson, a Newsmax writer and editor, has nearly three decades of experience covering news, culture and politics.
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