This Issue: Senate rejects E-Verify; Border Crisis worsens

Before Democrats attempt to grant amnesty to millions of illegal aliens through budget reconciliation, it must first wrap up consideration of the bipartisan infrastructure bill that's dominated most news coverage coming from Capitol Hill.

On Wednesday, Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) offered an amendment to the infrastructure bill that would have required companies that receive funding through the bill to use E-Verify. A George W. Bush-era executive order already exists, requiring companies that receive federal funds to use E-Verify, but there are exemptions to the EO which could apply to infrastructure, and Sen. Lankford's amendment would have codified the E-Verify requirement.

While the amendment did receive a majority of votes in the Senate, with all Republicans in attendance and 5 Democrats voting in favor, it fell short of the 60 required votes needed for passage.

The following Senate Democrats voted YES (* up for re-election in 2022):

Mark Kelly of Arizona*
Jon Ossoff of Georgia
Raphael Warnock of Georgia*
Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire*
Tim Kaine of Virginia

Again, ALL SENATE REPUBLICANS who were present voted in favor of the Lankford amendment. (Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma were not present.)

Several Democrats who represent swing states and are up for re-election in 2022 voted against the amendment, including Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, Michael Bennet of Colorado, and Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada.

UPDATE ON BUDGET RECONCILIATION

The Senate is expected to wrap up consideration of the infrastructure bill on Sunday and will then begin the budget reconciliation process.

The first step to budget reconciliation is passage of a resolution that provides instructions to the committees on what to include in the final budget reconciliation legislation. The vote on the resolution will likely occur next week with a vote on the legislation coming after Labor Day.

Our job for the last several weeks has been to convince at least one Democratic Senator to oppose adding amnesty instructions to the resolution. NumbersUSA activists have made thousands of phone calls, focusing on 12 Democratic Senators and Senate and House Democratic Leadership. Be on the lookout for more action alerts early next week asking for phone calls to Senate offices.

BORDER APPREHENSIONS WORSEN DESPITE SUMMER HEAT

The federal government has yet to release official border apprehension numbers for the month of July, but the Associated Press is reporting that border encounters exceeded 200,000 last month -- the highest number reported in over 20 years. Furthermore, the AP also reports that the number of Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) surged to an all-time high of more than 19,000.

The Biden Administration maintained that the spring surge was just seasonal fluctuation, but if the AP report is accurate, the border surge is worsening during the hot, summer months when apprehensions have historically dropped.

Surprisingly, the Biden Administration announced this week that it would continue Title 42 expulsions that were put in place by the Trump Administration. Title 42 allows the feds to quickly remove illegal border crossers because of the COVID-19 pandemic, however the Biden Administration has exempted UACs and Mexico refuses to accept family units, so the Biden policy only applies to single adults. The administration has been under tremendous pressure from open-borders groups to terminate Title 42, and the ACLU is suing the government over its use.

Despite the continued use of Title 42, the Biden Administration continues to release thousands of illegal border crossers into the interior of the country -- some without Notices to Appear -- and its support of adding an amnesty to the budget reconciliation process will only encourage more illegal border crossings.

All this points to a worsening border crisis with no end in sight.

Chris Chmielenski NumbersUSA Deputy Director