Update : Appeals court clears the way to end removal of migrants under Title 42, setting up Supreme Court review=
Migrants walk across the Rio Grande to surrender to U.S. Border Patrol agents in El Paso, Texas, on Tuesday.Herika Martinez / AFP via Getty Images
By Rafael Carranza || The Arizona Republic
A last-ditch effort by Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema to provide an estimated 2 million undocumented youth with legal status in exchange for stronger border security measures failed to gain enough support in the U.S. Senate to reach the 60-vote threshold needed to advance legislation.
The collapse of the bipartisan framework pushed by Sinema, who last week left the Democratic Party to register as an independent, and Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., also means that Congress likely will end its lame-duck session without addressing immigration reform.
The proposed agreement would have provided undocumented youth known as Dreamers a decade-long path to citizenship in the United States, in exchange for keeping in place for one more year Title 42, which allows the U.S. government to turn away certain migrants at the border. The pandemic health rule is scheduled to be phased out Dec. 21.
It would also increase funding and hiring for U.S. Border Patrol agents and would change the country’s asylum system to adjudicate and expedite claims directly from the U.S.-Mexico border rather than add them to the growing immigration court backlog.
“Look, we all know that the situation on the border is untenable,” Sinema told Phoenix radio station KTAR on Thursday morning. “We know that it’s about to get worse as Title 42 ends due to a court order next week.”
Sinema touted this bill as a first step to overhaul the country’s immigration system but said it didn’t address other much-needed reforms that, for example, could reduce the farmworker shortage in this country.
Although the framework for the compromise still can be used when Congress begins its new session Jan. 3, the prospects for passing contentious legislation, such as immigration reform bills, will be tougher since Republicans will hold control of the House while Democrats retain control of the Senate and the White House.
“We have an intensive all-government effort underway to prepare,” she said. “We’ll have more to share ahead of the 21st deadline. But in the meantime, DHS is surging resources to the border.”
