We’ve been hearing rumors for a while now that Senate Republicans under the leadership of Mitch McConnell have been working on a deal with the Democrats that would involved combatting the crisis at the southern border. Yesterday, a draft of the proposal was leaked and it’s nothing short of a disaster. If McConnell actually approved this, he’s handing a huge gift to Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer while getting virtually nothing of value in return and stabbing the conservative base in the back. Rather than emptying the country of illegals and closing the border, this deal would hand out green cards and work permits to millions of illegal aliens while allowing Joe Biden to continue his catch-and-release program. McConnell is definitely living up to his new reputation as a “Biden Republican.” (Financial Times)

The Senate GOP leadership’s draft border deal with the White House would reward illegal migration and encourage more foreign graduates to take jobs from American graduates, says the Immigration Accountability Project.

“There’s nothing in there that [restricts immigration], in fact, it’s just going to encourage more people to come,” said Chris Chmielenski, president of the Immigration Accountability Project, adding:

“It essentially authorizes the Biden administration to continue to catch and release people into the country. It authorizes them to give them work permits [to illegal migrants and] authorizes them to grant parole [legal status] to everybody that they’re able to funnel to a port of entry.”

Chmielenski tweeted out more of the awful details.

.@SenatorLankford Border deal would:

1) Increase green cards by 50,000/year

2) Work permits for adult children of H-1B holders

3) Immediate work permits to every illegal alien released from custody

4) Taxpayer funded lawyers to certain UACs and mentally incompetent aliens

5)…

— Immigration Accountability Project (@I_A_Project) January 11, 2024

So there would be a massive increase in the number of green cards being issued, giving people who entered our country illegally nearly everything short of voting rights. There would be “immediate” work permits issued to every illegal alien released from custody. That means that pretty much all of them will have work permits because nearly everyone is released. The taxpayers will be covering the cost of lawyers for many of them while they try to fight any attempts at deportation.

And what would the GOP be getting in return for all of this generosity? The Democrats would allow a “limited” number of migrants to be removed back to Mexico, but only if the number of encounters exceeded 5,000 per day for a full week. As you may recall, back when Barack Obama was president, we were told that if border encounters ever exceeded 1,000 in a day, that would be considered a crisis. But now we won’t even consider removing anyone until we hit 35,000 in a week.

The Democrats will also consider “restrictions” on grants of parole for those who cross the border between recognized ports of entry. But those parole orders are issued by the White House, not Congress. The Senate Democrats will have no way of enforcing that agreement on Joe Biden. So in essence, under McConnell’s plan, almost nothing would change except that Biden’s policies would be officially recognized and reinforced by Congress. This isn’t going to do anything to deter illegal migration. If anything, it’s going to attract even more people to come.

Who in their right mind could have possibly thought this was a good idea? Why didn’t McConnell toss in a mandate forcing everyone in the country to buy an electric vehicle while he was at it? Thankfully, assuming this leaked document is legitimate, it’s only a draft version. There should still be time to step back from the brink. If there’s going to be a deal made, it needs to begin with restarting construction on the wall and ending the catch-and-release policy. It also needs to include dramatically increased apprehensions and deportations of the more than eight million illegals that Biden has already turned loose across America. Once that’s settled we can discuss what the Democrats might get in exchange.

Mitch McConnell is reportedly more worried about securing the next round of funding for Ukraine than anything else. And he’s willing to sell out America’s own borders and security to get it. The last thing we need is to have policy set for us by a “Biden Republican.”