The claim: In a television interview with CNN's Dana Bash, Vice President Kamala Harris argued that the immigration expansion bill introduced by Sens. James Lankford (R-Okla.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Indiana and Arizona) has broad support and would have passed Congress without former President Donald Trump's opposition.
Verdict: False. In fact, the Lanford Murphy-Sinema bill faced bipartisan opposition from nearly every Republican in the House and Senate, and many House and Senate Democrats who objected to the bill's lack of amnesty for illegal immigrants.
“Joe Biden and I and our administration have worked with members of the United States Congress on immigration … through a bipartisan effort, including some of the most conservative members of the United States Congress,” Harris said in an interview with Bash.
There was a bill that we supported, that I supported, and Donald Trump found out about it. He believed that a bill that would have helped secure the border would be politically useless. He instructed his colleagues in Congress not to introduce the bill, causing it to die. [Emphasis added]
Harris' explanation of the border bill is not true.
In early January of this year, the Immigration Accountability Project helped leak details of this bill to the American public, noting that the bill would increase levels of legal immigration while expediting work authorization for immigrants released into the US, and most infamously, allowing tens of thousands of immigrants to cross the border each week before the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) could implement any border controls.
President Trump urged Republicans to oppose the bill because of its provisions, but Republicans in the House and Senate had already begun to oppose it when details of the bill leaked, as had Democrats in the House and Senate, who also began to oppose the bill because it did not include amnesty for illegal immigrants.
The most prominent are Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Ed Markey (D-MA), Alex Padilla (D-CA), and Bob Menendez (D-NJ). Opposed The bill is also supported by Sens. Cory Booker (D-NJ), LaFonza Butler (D-Calif.), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), and Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ).
“I will not vote for the bill that goes before the Senate this week because it contains provisions that are antithetical to the shared values of the American people. These provisions will not make the American people safer,” Booker said. said in May, before the bill was defeated.
In early February, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus said it opposed the bill because it lacked amnesty for illegal immigrants.
“From what I've read so far, the Senate [the] “The agreement to address the challenges at the border is not up to date,” Rep. Nanette Barragan (D-Calif.), who was the caucus chair, said at the time.
Caucus chair Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-Texas) said it was unacceptable that the bill did not include amnesty for “all DREAMers.”
“…This is not real reform,” Garcia said. “Real reform would include creating a path to citizenship for all Dreamers. With this bill, Dreamers have been betrayed by the Senate. The American people have spoken clearly: Dreamers must stay.”
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter. here.
