Washington, D.C. — Senator Ted Budd (R-NC) has co-sponsored the Secure Our Border Act. The legislation is the Senate companion to H.R. 2, the House immigration bill that passed on May 10, 2023.
The bill addresses many immigration-related issues and proposes a series of actions, including:
- Requiring the Department of Homeland Security to resume border wall construction.
- Increasing the number of Border Patrol Agents.
- Tightening asylum standards by restricting asylum to only aliens who present at ports of entry and by requiring aliens to prove they are “more likely than not” to qualify for their asylum claim.
- Narrowing DHS’s power to unilaterally grant parole to illegal aliens.
- Criminalizing visa overstays by making the first offense a misdemeanor punishable by up to a $1,000 fine and the second offense a felony punishable by up to a $2,000 fine and up to two years imprisonment.
- Stopping NGOs from using tax dollars to transport or lodge illegal aliens and provide illegal aliens with lawyers.
- Restricting DHS from using its CBP One app to welcome illegal aliens into the country.
- Requiring employers to use E-Verify.
- Ensuring CBP has access to the criminal history databases of all countries of origin and transit so that CBP is aware of the criminal history of illegal aliens encountered at the southern border.
The bill was originally introduced by Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX).
The legislative text of the bill is HERE.
Sen. Budd said in a statement:
“President Biden has created the worst border crisis in American history. Instead of taking steps to solve this crisis, the Biden administration has doubled down on his dangerous open-border policies. Senator Cruz’s Secure Our Border Act provides a comprehensive set of solutions to protect our country and enforce the law.”
Sen. Cruz said:
“Under Joe Biden, we have a wide-open southern border. The Biden Border Crisis has created the largest illegal immigration crisis in our nation’s history. Biden’s open borders are an invitation for the cartels to brutalize children, to assault women, to overrun our communities with illegal aliens, and to flood this country with narcotics and fentanyl that kill over 100,000 people per year. This bill would stop the Biden Border Crisis dead in its tracks by building the wall, ratcheting up asylum standards, increasing the number of Border Patrol Agents, and implementing effective border security policies.”
###
