Slotkin introduces bipartisan bills to field migration surge at Mexico border
Washington — Michigan Rep. Elissa Slotkin, a Democrat from Holly, plans to introduce two bills Wednesday, alongside Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales of Texas, aimed at managing migration surges at the U.S.-Mexico border.
One bill, dubbed the Emergency Migration Response Act, would give the president the authority to declare an "extraordinary migration event" and allocate resources to coordinate response to an influx of migrants.
The bill would appropriate $1.5 billion to an "Emergency Migration Response Fund" that would primarily go to U.S. Customs and Border Protection for temporary migrant processing facilities, medical care, transportation and staffing costs.
It also would allow the Department of Homeland Security to redirect staff to the border to process asylum claims and "(surge) resources to process migrants in their countries of origin."
The other, the Border Security and Migrant Safety Act, would create an intelligence cell within Customs and Border Protection dedicated to combatting "transnational criminal organizations" using migration routes to smuggle narcotics to the U.S. and "malicious actors that seek to encourage illicit migrant travel to the United States."
The bill also would develop a task force within DHS to combat human trafficking and smuggling, and direct DHS and the State Department to expand coordination with law enforcement in Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador to prevent trafficking.
"Our immigration system has been broken for multiple administrations — Democrat and Republican. Neither party has provided real solutions to the crisis at our southern border that incentivize people to apply from their home country,” Slotkin said in a statement. "I’ve always been supportive of a bipartisan plan that both secures our border and reforms our laws, so today I’m putting my money where my mouth is."
The proposed legislation comes as a federal judge is expected to make a decision this week on whether to block the phase-out of an emergency public health order known as Title 42 that is set to end on May 23.
The policy invoked under former President Donald Trump directs Border Patrol to turn away migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border without allowing them to seek asylum due to the coronavirus pandemic. President Joe Biden continued the policy but exempted unaccompanied children, directing agents to put them in state or federal shelters until they can be connected to a family member or sponsor in the U.S.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it would end Title 42 due to decreased Covid-19 cases and widely available vaccines. Republican-led lawsuits challenged the decision in court.
Homeland Security has predicted up to 18,000 migrants per day will come to the U.S.-Mexico border when the policy is lifted, more than twice the current average.
Slotkin in a letter to Biden last month urged him to delay lifting Title 42 until the administration has a plan in place "to address the inevitable migration surge."
rbeggin@detroitnews.com
Twitter: @rbeggin