With so much attention focused on the Middle East, passage of the Senate reconciliation measure – also known as the "one big, beautiful bill" – has been pushed to the backburner in the news cycle. But senators are working on several amendments to the voluminous budget package, which narrowly passed in the House on May 22. "Border czar" Tom Homan has pushed for passage so that he can finally have the adequate resources to deport illegal immigrants.
Ira Mehlman is media director for the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) expects the bill to come through the Senate with pretty much everything intact.
"This is a great opportunity for them to get funding for all sorts of measures to enhance our border security, to enhance interior enforcement, and other matters like that," he tells AFN – "[and] a great, great opportunity for the administration to carry out its pledges to secure our borders and to make sure that people who are here [illegally] are removed."
The FAIR spokesman is hopeful such policies will remain in effect beyond the Trump administration.
"There's still going to be a need for Congress to address some of the issues that became very, very evident under the Biden administration where they could simply decide that they didn't want to enforce laws," says Mehlman. "So, there is a great need for further legislation."
Columnist Suzanne Bowdey writes that a major hurdle for the reconciliation bill appears to be Senate parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough, who has been combing through the fine print of the massive piece of legislation to ensure it meets the standards set forth in the Byrd Rule, which keeps parties from tacking on "extraneous" provisions. (See 'What is reconciliation?')
The Senate expects to vote on the measure this week, after which members of both the Senate and the House are expected to hash out differences between the two versions. FAIR says it plans to continue pushing for policies to fully secure the borders, enforce the laws, and ensure illegal aliens are not provided access to tax credits and public benefits.
