Blog & Updates

Enforcement Amendments Thwarted on Supplemental Appropriations

June 15, 2010 - Posted by Maurice Belanger

Appropriations season is approaching, but we've already been treated to a teaser in the form of a supplemental appropriations bill that recently passed the Senate. The bill was drafted to provide funds for costs related to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.  Supplemental appropriations bills have a way of becoming loaded with various politicians pet projects.  

Senator John McCain (R-AZ) is better known as a critic of the "pork-barrel" projects that get tacked on to "emergency" spending bills, but this year he is in a tough primary fight against immigration hardliner J.D. Hayworth, so he has a pet project of his own: border enforcement.  He offered an amendment to have 6,000 National Guard troops deployed to the southern border.   That amendment failed in a procedural vote requiring 60 votes (51 to 46).

Senator Jon Kyl, also from Arizona, attempted to tack on spending in the amount of $200 million to beef up Operation Streamline, a federal program that has focused federal prosecutorial resources on illegal border crossers with a consequent reduction in prosecutions of more serious crime.  That amendment also lost on a procedural vote (54 to 44).  

Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) completed the strikeout with an amendment that would have added more than a billion dollars to the tab for border and interior immigration enforcement personnel.  This amendment also went down in a procedural vote (54 to 43).

These amendments were all defeated thanks to the good work of advocates in Washington and around the country. 

On the positive side, the bill contains funding to cover the cost of USCIS work on Haitian TPS.  The House has yet to pass its version of the spending bill.