Shot:
ABC News has confirmed that the Senate “Gang of Eight” has reached an agreement to strengthen border security provisions in their bill that they hope will deliver the 70 crucial votes needed for the measure.
According to a high ranking Senate aide, a formal announcement is expected Thursday morning.
A second capitol hill source tells ABC News the agreement will include a major border build up, with a huge increase in border personnel and an increase in fencing. Attaching the amendment could bring the larger piece of legislation closer to the goal of 70 votes that some members of the Gang of Eight have envisioned.
The Corker-Hoeven proposal would reportedly require a 90 percent apprehension rate at the border, and would use certain metrics to determine whether that number had been hit in order to trigger the vaunted path to citizenship for illegal immigrants already in the country. “How do you have assurance that you’ve secured the order before you get to the Green Card?” said Hoeven. “We’ll put the plan in there specifically, and then based on the number of folks you identify, you’ve got to stop at least 90 percent, arrest them or turn them back.”
Democrats implied they were less than thrilled with the deal, with Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) stating that Democrats had caved to “virtually everything” Republicans wanted. “I’ve reached one bipartisan agreement,” Durbin said. “When I look at the road from here to becoming a law, I see a lot of right turns. No left turns.”
It remains unexplained how the government would identify the illegal immigrants crossing the border so as to reach that 90 percent determination; it also remains unclear who would make that determination, the Secretary of Homeland Security, Congress, or some other administrative agency.
That last part is pretty important, no?
I don’t want to start making attack videos to get the Gang’s attention. But I will if they keep this up.
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