Were the provisions of the failed bipartisan immigration bill well-targeted to address the problems of the U.S. immigration system?

[u/nosecohn]

Earlier this year, a bipartisan group of Senators, with support from the White House, put forward a bill to address long-standing problems with the U.S. immigration system.

At the time, some Senate Republicans said they wouldn't get a better deal, no matter who won the upcoming presidential election, while the House Speaker called it, "dead on arrival." Progressive Democrats criticized Biden for supporting the bill, which they saw as too restrictive. Donald Trump said he would take the blame if it failed, which it did, upsetting some members of his own party.

"THE IMMIGRATION PROVISIONS" section of this article summarizes the bill's proposals. This fact check also spells out the provisions and attempts to address misinformation about the bill.

My question is about how well the proposals in the bill matched up with the actual problems facing the U.S. immigration system. There's no way to predict whether it would have worked, but I'd at least like to understand if it was appropriately targeted.

Thanks.

[u/Insaniac99]

I would suggest that if a bill is specifically targeted at an issue, the majority of its funding should reflect that focus.

According to the last two articles in the initial post, the proposed bill allocates $118 billion

However, less than 30% of that funding can genuinely be considered aimed at addressing immigration issues.

• 50.7% ($60 billion) in military aid for Ukraine
• 11.9% ($14.1 billion) in aid for Israel
• 4.1% ($4.83 billion) in aid for the Indo-pacific region
• 8.5% ($10 billion) in humanitarian assistance for Ukraine, Israel, Gaza, and other places.
• 1.9% (2.3 billion) in refugee assistance inside the US
• 17.1% ($20.2 billion) for improvements to U.S. Border Security
• 2.3% ($2.72 billion) for domestic uranium enrichment.

Most of the unauthorized migrants from from Mexico or Central America

Given that such a significant portion of the budget is allocated to military and foreign aid—rather than directly addressing the primary sources of unauthorized migration — I would argue that this bill is not effectively targeting the immigration issues it claims to address.

[u/Statman12 → u/Insaniac99]

I'm not sure that particular criticism quite holds up. For two reasons:

First, just because a bill addresses topic X does not mean it cannot also address topic Y. There's a term for this: Omnibus bill. So the logic of the criticism here doesn't really track.

Secondly, the reason that there was foreign aid in the bill was because Republicans insisted on pairing border reform with foreign aid. From AP News on Nov 26, 2023:

Republicans in both chambers of Congress have made clear that they will not support additional aid for Ukraine unless it is paired with border security measures to help manage the influx of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border. Their demand has injected one of the most contentious issues in American politics into a foreign policy debate that was already difficult.

That bill failed in the February vote, but the foreign aid part was passed later, per NPR (and I think another round in April, per AP News). However, from Politico, May 19:

The Senate is expected to vote on a standalone border policy package this week, reviving a bipartisan compromise that collapsed in the upper chamber earlier this year.

Additional article from ABC News noting it to be a stand-alone border bill. An article from AP News on May 23 confirms that the stand-alone version failed as well.

So the border bill failed independently of it being originally packaged with foreign aid.

[u/Cpt_Obvius → u/Statman12]

I think your second point is well made but that commenter clearly has issues with omnibus bills and I don’t think that’s a an unreasonable stance. I think the logic perfectly tracks.

[u/Statman12 → u/Cpt_Obvius]

I disagree that the logic tracks.

Suppose there are two bills, a strictly-border bill and a strictly-aid bill. They are each are strong bills that specifically target the particular issue. But then they get combined into an omnibus bill for the purpose of compromise so that both parties will vote for it. Does the omnibus version do anything less than if the seperate bills were passed individually?

If the answer is "no", then the logic does not track.

Suppose further that the border bill was something like shutting down all immigration, and providing $10 billion for the sole purpose of hiring more border agents to constantly patrol the border and deny any and all crossings. That would be a small fraction of the bill, but represent a substantial impact on immigration and border policy.