CLAIM: Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) claimed during Wisconsin’s U.S. Senate debate Friday night with Republican businessman Eric Hovde that the pro-migration Senate legislation was the “toughest border bill” in years.
VERDICT: False. The bill would have allowed up to 5,000 illegal aliens to enter the U.S. Southern border daily, and its toughness pales in comparison to the comprehensive House border security bill, H.R. 2.
Baldwin’s claim came while fielding a question about potentially reviving the Senate migration bill, which Democrats hail as “bipartisan” even though it never passed the Senate.
“So we negotiated on a bipartisan basis in the Senate the toughest border bill that we’ve seen in years,” Baldwin claimed.
However, Hovde outlined the glaring issues with the bill in his response about resurrecting the legislation.
“That bill was dead on arrival. The house had already rejected it. It was masquerading as a border bill with really funding Ukraine,” Hovde said. “And every senator, once they found out what was in it, was opposed to it.”
“The simple fact is it would have codified allowing almost 5,000 illegal immigrants coming into our country every single day. It wasn’t going to change any of the asylum laws or immigration laws at all,” he added.
The bill would have allowed up to 5,000 border encounters per day over a seven-day period before a border emergency is triggered, as Breitbart News noted:
Hovde also drew a contrast between the flow of illegal immigration at the border during Trump’s tenure and now under the Biden-Harris administration:
Here’s the reality, and you can’t run from this fact: The last year of President Trump, only 300,000 illegal immigrants came into the country. The first year of Joe Biden, he lifted 95 executive orders, most importantly, stay in Mexico. Over three million came in the first year, over three million the second year, over four million the next year. We don’t know how many have come in, but it’s flooded our streets with fentanyl. We have criminals that have entered into our country, and it’s created a humanitarian crisis.
Moreover, Baldwin’s claim that the Senate migration bill was the “toughest border bill” in years rings false when looking at House Resolution 2. The bill, which passed the House in 2023, would force the construction of the border wall to resume immediately, along with other strong measures to secure the border.
