President Joe Biden has proposed additional funding to address a flood of immigration issues, and Senator Shelley Moore Capito says the proposal still needs work.
The full, $106 billion package from the White House also would provide aid for American allies Ukraine and Israel. A significant element is $14 billion for immigration enforcement.
Right now, the proposal includes $4.4 billion for the Department of Homeland Security and $3.1 billion for additional Border Patrol agents, asylum officers and processing personnel. It also includes $1.4 billion to help state and local governments with shelter and services for migrants. And the request seeks $1.2 billion in additional funding to boost narcotics detection and interdiction at the border.
Capito said senators are likely to write their own version of the allocations, and her preference would be to bolster the border security provisions while reducing the proposal’s emphasis on additional resources to process the immigrants who cross into the country.
“There has to be something significant on the border,” Capito, a Republican, said in a briefing this week with West Virginia reporters.
“Last month alone, over 269,000 people were apprehended at the southern border, the highest number ever. I mean, we keep saying this, this is the highest number ever. And it keeps getting higher and higher and the administration is not making the significant moves to try to deter people from coming into this country.”
Capito elaborated on how she views the balance after being asked by reporter Charles Young of West Virginia News.
“I will not vote for something that only at the border provides more processing agents so that people can come in quicker, get processed and come into the interior of the United States more,” Capito said. “I will not vote for something that just throws money at a problem that needs to be deterred and curtailed in the numbers.
“So if it’s more healthcare, if it’s more transportation, if it’s more soft-sided tents to do the processing, no. We need significant immigration reform that I think we could get in here.”
That means, Capito said, “quicker and more meaningful asylum claims. In other words, let’s turn people back as they enter rather than waiting seven or eight years if their asylum claim is not legitimate.
“Number two, the remain in Mexico policy,” Capito continued, “and that is saying to someone who comes in ‘You can have your asylum claim heard, but you have to wait in Mexico. You’re not going to wait eight years in the United States of America. That is a deterrent because people want into this country; that’s their goal.”
More barriers is another piece, Capito said.
“At least, barriers do prevent — and where people are coming in is where we don’t have significant barrier,” she said. “That could be wall; that could be more virtual types of barrier.”
Congresswoman Carol Miller, R-W.Va., also says increased border security is necessary although she seemed critical of particular aspects of the Biden proposal.
“We need to have the right people securing our border,” Miller said Thursday on MetroNews’ “Talkline.”
“I’ve talked since 2018 about building the wall. But I believe, let’s put back remain in Mexico. Let them stay there. If we are giving asylum to people, let’s make it asylum. We’ve got so many people leaking through our border.”
She continued, “I don’t want to bring the judges in and all those people like that who are just gonna say, ‘Sure, you can come over, yeah your left foot hurts, sure you can come on in.’ We have to be very careful who we’re letting in. Enough’s enough.”