President Joe Biden on Wednesday introduced an immigration reform bill that emphasizes technology at, and between, ports of entry to strengthen border security while also directing that construction of a wall along portions of the southern border be paused until unspent funds can be redirected.
The U.S. Citizenship Act sent to Congress Wednesday afternoon revives the failed attempt at immigration reform by the Obama administration and a bipartisan group of senators that aimed to create a path to citizenship for immigrants already in the U.S., albeit illegally, over more than a decade while also strengthening border security with billions of dollars in new funding for sensors and fencing.
The Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act passed the Senate 68 to 32 with 14 Republicans joining all 52 Democrats for passage in June 2013 but was never considered in the House.
A fact sheet on the proposed U.S. Citizenship Act released Wednesday morning by the Biden transition team ahead of the inauguration says the new president’s proposal will “prioritize smart border controls” and “supplement existing border resources with technology and infrastructure.”
The fact sheet says that the Biden administration will authorize additional spending for the Department of Homeland Security for technology to speed screening and improve the detection of drugs and other contraband at land, sea and airports of entry.
“This includes high-throughput scanning technologies to ensure that all commercial and passenger vehicles and freight rail traffic entering the United States at land ports of entry and rail-border crossings along the border undergo pre-primary scanning,” the fact sheet says.
The fact sheet doesn’t mention how much additional funding would be authorized for DHS to spend on vehicle and cargo scanning technologies at ports of entry.
Congress about two years ago appropriated nearly $600 million, a record amount, for DHS Customs and Border Protection to purchase large-scale non-intrusive inspection systems to significantly increase the number of trucks and passenger vehicles to be scanned while entering the U.S. at land ports of entry. Last summer, CBP awarded $379 million to Leidos [LDOS], OSI Systems [OSIS] Rapiscan Systems division, and Smiths Detection to compete to provide new high-energy NII systems to scan rail cars entering the U.S.
Former President Trump earlier this month signed a bill requiring DHS to develop a plan to screen all commercial and passenger vehicles entering the U.S. at land ports of entry.
Biden’s plan for border security at the ports of entry also calls for infrastructure improvements to “enhance the ability to process asylum seekers and detect, interdict, disrupt and prevent narcotics from entering the United States.”
To enhance border security between ports of entry, Biden is directing DHS to come up with a strategy that “focuses on flexible solutions and technologies that expand the ability to detect illicit activity, evaluate the effectiveness of border security operations, and easily be relocated and broken out by Border Patrol Sector.
The Bush, Trump and Obama administrations all funded the deployment of various border security technologies, including fixed and mobile sensor systems, and manned and unmanned aircraft.
During his Senate confirmation hearing on Tuesday, Alejandro Mayorkas, Biden’s nominee to be Secretary of Homeland Security, said there is no one-size-fits-all approach to border security and that, if confirmed, he will have to study the issue further.
The Biden administration on Wednesday also said that the president will immediately terminate Trump’s emergency declaration that allowed federal funding, much of it from the Defense Department, to be reprogrammed toward construction of a steel bollard barrier along hundreds of miles of the southern border. About $16 billion funding has been appropriated for a border wall system since fiscal year 2017.
“The proclamation directs an immediate pause in wall construction projects to allow a close review of the legality of the funding and contracting methods used, and to determine the best way to redirect funds that were diverted by the prior administration to fund wall construction,” a posting on the Biden transition website said before the inauguration.