WASHINGTON Members of Congress and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas were at odds Wednesday over how lawmakers should improve border security, as they grapple with how to handle an emergency spending request from the White House.
Mayorkas, speaking to the Senate Appropriations Committee, highlighted a sweeping proposal that President Joe Biden released early in his term and repeatedly rejected the idea of making minor policy changes. immigration. Instead, he told senators a complete overhaul was needed.
There is unanimous agreement that our broken immigration system is in dire need of reform, Mayorkas said. On the first day of this administration, President Biden presented Congress with a reform bill. We fully subscribed to the need for policy changes, not in a piecemeal way, but in a comprehensive form.
Several senators on the panel, however, called on Mayorkas and the Biden administration to work with Democrats and Republicans on some bipartisan changes that could be agreed to quickly.
Kansas Republican Sen. Jerry Moran noted that he has seen many attempts over the years for broad, comprehensive immigration bills, but nothing has been passed by a president in decades .
While I agree that comprehensive reform or changes are beneficial, in my experience in Congress we are still waiting for comprehensive reform and as a result we are doing almost nothing, Moran said. And I hope that you, the administration, will take this opportunity to work seriously with those of us who are ready to make changes to defeat this situation and harm our national security.
Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, an independent, said that while her DHS clearly needs the additional funding requested by the White House, the agency also needs to work with Congress on policy changes.
“I would encourage the Department of Homeland Security and the administration to also recognize what seems pretty obvious to me, which is that the policy needs to be changed so that we can control the situation at the border,” Sinema said.
Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski said that while she would support an overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws, the Biden administration must recognize that we need to make additional progress in this area.
We need to be able to look critically at some of the policies we have in place and admit that they’re just not working at the moment, Murkowski said. And so I hope you take that to heart.
Senate Appropriations Chair Patty Murray, a Washington State Democrat, encouraged Republican senators to work with Democrats on bipartisan, common-sense solutions to help us humanely manage encounters at the border, process applications from noncitizens seeking protection under our nation’s asylum laws, while continuing our nation’s long tradition of welcoming people fleeing violence and persecution.
White House requests
The Biden administration sent two requests for emergency additional funding to Congress last month. The first, for national security, offers aid to Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan and US border security.
The second, for national funding, includes child care, home heating assistance for low-income families and compensation for wildland firefighters.
The $105 billion national security funding request asks lawmakers to approve $13.6 billion for the Department of Homeland Security.
The additional $56 billion request for domestic spending calls on Congress to provide $22 billion to the Department of Health and Human Services, about $16 billion of which would be for child care assistance. About $23 billion would go to several federal departments for disaster response and recovery.
Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra testified alongside Mayorkas on Wednesday, arguing for funding for child care.
Child care in this country is either unaffordable or unavailable for millions of Americans, Becerra said. The average cost of child care ranges from $5,000 to over $17,000 per year depending on where you are in the country. It’s like college tuition for most families.
Murray said pandemic funding approved by Congress to help parents pay for child care and help support these businesses expired at the end of September.
If we don’t act, more parents will be forced out of the workplace, small businesses will be left without the employees they need, and families and our entire economy will really feel the consequences, said Murray.
Maine Sen. Susan Collins, the committee’s top Republican, said she supports improving access to quality, affordable child care, although she said it should be done through the Child Care Development Block Grant program and not through emergency financial assistance.
This program provides financial assistance to low-income families.
Becerra said he and his team would be more than happy to work with Collins on a long-term solution, but he encouraged her and other senators to approve emergency funding as well.
While we get to this long-term solution, we need something for the small businesses that are going to go out of business tomorrow. We need something for parents looking for quality child care today, Becerra. And without the stabilization funds, we will lose ground, we will lose businesses.
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