Congressional Republicans are teeing up multiple small-scale border security bills with the intent of sending them to President-elect Donald Trump’s desk as soon as he takes office.House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) says he has his sights set on quickly nailing down “low-hanging fruit” with respect to border security as Republicans work on a larger, more comprehensive related package of bills.“We will be addressing border.
We have got a number of bills just over the next two weeks, Maria, that we’re going to address the low-hanging fruit, so to speak,” Johnson told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo on Sunday.The goal is to give Trump some easy legislative victories to sign into law after he gets sworn into office Jan.20.First up will be the Laken Riley Act, which GOP leadership is eyeing for a vote this week.
The measure was named after the University of Georgia in Athens nursing student, who was strangled to death by an illegal migrant.The bill, which had cleared the GOP-led House last year but wasn’t considered in the Democrat-led Senate, would compel the feds to take custody of illegal migrants who are caught stealing.
The suspect in Riley’s death had previously been caught shoplifting.It would also permit state attorney generals to sue the federal Department of Homeland Security if lax enforcement of immigration law results in the harm of a citizen in their state.
Another bill is the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which mandates citizens prove citizenship in order to register to vote and has been reintroduced by Rep.Chip Roy (R-Texas).Johnson attempted to pressure Democrats into backing the bill during the government shutdown negotiations that took place in September.
Ultimately, he was unsuccessful in drawing that concession from them.A third border-related bill, the Violence Against Women by Illegal Aliens Act, championed by Rep.
Nancy Mace (R-SC), would compel the feds to deport migrants who were determined to have engaged...