Continued controversy over President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda faced criticism from an unexpected source when a traditionally conservative Republican senator suggested that former President Joe Biden put forward a better plan for immigration reform.
Sen. James Lankford (R-OK), who isn’t up for reelection until 2028, told CBS News that Biden’s 2024 immigration bill “should have passed” and would have addressed many of the loopholes critics argue encourage illegal immigration into the U.S.
“One of the challenges we have is our asylum laws do include a lot of loopholes in them that cartels have exploited for years,” he said during an interview at Arizona State University’s McCain Institute. “They’ve become experts in exploiting our laws because it’s become billions of dollars of income to them when they can find those loopholes and gaps.”
Had the bill passed, it would have given Biden the authority to close the border to new asylum requests, but only if daily illegal crossings averaged more than 5,000 for at least one week. The bill would also have limited humanitarian parole—a provision critics say enables migrants to enter the U.S. with minimal oversight while awaiting court dates that can be delayed for nine or ten years.
While migrants in the 1980s and 90s typically evaded border patrol agents through nighttime crossings or other tactics, experts told the New York Times that a more recent strategy involves surrendering to authorities and claiming asylum, especially amid debates over Biden’s bill.
Lankford mocked a conservative commentator on social media who suggested last week that “somebody needs to bring up a bill to close some of these loopholes.”
“I laughed and I thought, I know somebody that’s brought one of those,” he said about Biden. “I know a guy, and I know a bill that could do that.”
The bipartisan legislation was ultimately rejected in the Senate after Trump urged Republicans to oppose it, citing both political and policy concerns.
“Was the bill everything I wanted? No, I was negotiating with a Democrat White House trying to get it done. But many of the areas that we need to close the loopholes were in that bill, and some form of that we will eventually get done,” Lankford said.
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It remains uncertain whether Biden’s border bill would have effectively addressed the millions of illegal immigrants and asylum seekers who entered the country before the bill was introduced.
Interestingly, however, Trump has managed to essentially seal the northern and southern borders of the U.S. using existing laws and executive authorities.
In addition, Trump’s recently signed “big, beautiful” bill has allocated hundreds of billions of dollars in new funding to immigration authorities to accelerate deportations. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) alone is expected to receive $170 billion, enabling the agency to hire 10,000 additional officers and offer each a $10,000 signing bonus.
Ahead of its passage, Trump took to social media to warn that failure to reach an agreement on passage of the bill would also result in the largest tax increase in history.
“Republicans, the One Big Beautiful Bill, perhaps the greatest and most important of its kind in history, gives the largest Tax Cuts and Border Security ever, Jobs by the Millions, Military/Vets increases, and so much more. The failure to pass means a whopping 68% Tax increase, the largest in history!!!,” he posted.
The law enacts Trump’s domestic tax and spending agenda that includes $4.5 trillion in tax cuts, according to the latest CBO analysis, which is often wrong. Also, it makes permanent the tax cuts passed early in Trump’s first term.
The bill also includes $1.2 trillion in waste, fraud, and abuse cuts to Medicaid and food stamp programs, tightening eligibility requirements, and altering federal reimbursements to states. Additionally, it allocates $350 billion to bolster border and national security efforts, including funding for deportations.