(The Center Square) – Montana has one of the longest U.S.-Canada borders in the nation. But the other side of the border, about 1,000 miles away, is becoming a hot-button point in the state’s ongoing U.S. Senate elections.
Montana’s current senator, Democrat Jon Tester, is up for reelection this year against Republican candidate Tim Sheehy, a former Navy SEAL and aviation firefighter. Sheehy has consistently attacked Tester on immigration and border security, and has tried to paint him as an enabler of President Joe Biden’s record on illegal immigration from Mexico, forcing Tester to defend his own record.
“What’s happening on our southern border is an absolute crisis, and it’s getting worse every day under the Biden Administration, with politicians like Jon Tester taking tough stances on border security but not actually doing anything,” Sheehy wrote on his campaign website. “The result of our open southern border is more crime and drugs flowing into our nation and into Montana communities.”
According to data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, more than 7.9 million foreign nationals have illegally crossed the U.S.-Mexico border since the Biden administration took office. This figure includes only those apprehended by law enforcement, not those who sneak in between immigration checkpoints. Many of these foreign nationals can remain in the U.S. if they file an asylum application, but the application can take years to process.
“Jon Tester has teamed up with Joe Biden to support the invasion taking place on our southern border,” Sheehy wrote in a news release blasting Tester for voting to dismiss impeachment charges against Biden’s Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Sheehy supports building a physical wall along the southern border — a longtime policy goal of former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee — and has pledged to end the federal government’s migration plane operations that disperse migrants around the country.
Sheehy’s focus on the border reflects a broader strategy by Republican Senate candidates in battleground states across the country who are prioritizing the issue. In April, the Senate Republican Conference campaign announced it would spend $15 million attacking Tester on immigration in the upcoming election, according to Politico.
Tester, meanwhile, highlighted the differences between himself and Biden on this issue.
“I’ve stood up to Biden by demanding action to secure our border and protect our Montana way of life,” Tester wrote on Twitter, now known as X, on June 9. Tester has also touted his support for bipartisan border security bills introduced in the Senate in February and May, with Republicans voting against them.
“The Senate just took up one of the toughest border bills ever, but Republicans killed it to give their opponent a campaign issue,” Tester tweeted, before addressing his opponent directly, writing, “Tim, you didn’t even read the bill before you said you were against it!”
But critics of the Senate bill Tester supports say it would expand and codify the discretionary powers of Biden’s Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on border-related issues. Mayorkas has used that power to unilaterally change laws enacted by Congress, including the creation of more than a dozen parole programs that House Republicans have deemed unlawful and cited when they impeached him in February.
This year, Tester joined Republicans in supporting conservative immigration legislation, an unusual move for a Senate Democrat, centered on the Laken Riley Act, named for the Georgia graduate student who was allegedly killed by an illegal alien. The bill passed the House in March and was co-sponsored by Tester in the Senate.
Montana is considered a conservative state, with a Cook Partisan Voting Index (PVI) score of R+11, leaning Republican, but Tester has been re-elected three times as a Democrat and is the only Democrat currently holding statewide office.
Immigration has been a major issue in this year’s federal election campaign. Democrats have been trying to blunt Republican accusations that they are knowingly allowing illegal immigration, and Biden signed an executive order on June 4 to ban asylum for people who cross the border illegally. But Biden also issued an order on June 18 allowing certain illegal immigrants who marry U.S. citizens to gain legal status and ultimately U.S. citizenship, a move Republicans have derided as an “amnesty.”
Not to be outdone, President Trump announced last week that he would grant permanent residency to all international students who graduate from U.S. universities. There are currently more than 1 million international students in the United States, according to the State Department, and Trump’s proposal would be the largest expansion of legal immigration since the Reagan administration, when comprehensive immigration reform legislation was last passed by Congress.
Tester and Sheehy did not immediately respond to requests for comment on whether they supported Biden and Trump’s latest actions, respectively.
