WASHINGTON (WBAP/KLIF) – Senator John Cornyn announced a legislative proposal on Thursday that he said is meant to respond to the current surge in migrants crossing the southern border.
U.S. Representatives Henry Cuellar (D-TX-28) and Tony Gonzales (R-TX-23) joined Senator Cornyn to introduce the ‘Bipartisan Border Solutions Act.’
The lawmakers said Thursday that the bill would improve both the Department of Homeland Security’s and the Department of Justice’s capacity to manage migration influxes and adjudicate asylum claims in a timely manner, protect unaccompanied migrant children, reduce impact on local communities, ensure migrants are treated fairly and humanely, and ultimately deter those who do not have realistic asylum claims from placing themselves in danger by making the treacherous journey to our southern border.
“I have seen firsthand that law enforcement at our southern border has been overwhelmed by this historic surge of migrants, and border communities are straining to provide whatever assistance they can,” said Senator Cornyn. “With the Border Patrol estimating that this situation will only get worse, we must address this in a meaningful way that is fair to migrants seeking asylum, takes the pressure off of our border communities, and allows our Border Patrol agents to focus on their primary mission of securing the border.”
According to Senator Cornyn, the legislation establishes at least 4 regional processing centers in high-traffic Border Patrol sectors to properly handle the influx of migrants along the southwest border and improve interagency coordination.
“The current influx of migrants has stretched our law enforcement agents and border communities to a breaking point,” said Congressman Gonzales. “To restore order, Congress must enact commonsense measures that relieve the bottlenecks in our immigration system and allow our DHS agents to focus on their national security responsibilities. We must take steps towards creating an immigration system that allows people to safely and legally come to the United States.”
The bill would also creates pilot programs to facilitate fairer and more efficient credible fear determinations and asylum decisions, while ensuring fairness in proceedings through provisions to protect access to counsel, language translation services, and legal orientations. It also expands legal orientation programming and translation services, and protects access to counsel for migrants.
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