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What’s in the Senate’s $118 billion national security bill?
By Amy B Wang, Liz Goodwin and Leigh Ann Caldwell
February 5, 2024 at 5:33 p.m. EST

Senate negotiators unveiled a bipartisan $118 billion national security bill on Feb. 4 that included funding for border secuirty and defense aid to Ukraine. (Video: Reuters)

$20 billion in money for border security, immigration

A bipartisan group of senators released Sunday night the text of a massive $118 billion national security bill that ties U.S. funding for Ukraine and Israel to border security and immigration.

Though the bill’s political future is dicey, at best — House Republicans have already declared the measure would be “dead on arrival” in that chamber — it would mark the first significant action taken by Congress on immigration in decades if it passes.

Here are some highlights of what the legislation includes:

$20 billion in money for border security, immigration
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The bill would provide $20 billion in emergency funding for federal authorities — including the Homeland Security, Justice and State departments, as well as other agencies — to hire thousands of new Border Patrol agents and asylum officers, increase detention capacity, and invest in technology to combat the smuggling of fentanyl and other narcotics.

The proposal would deliver “much-needed resources to support and expand the DHS workforce after decades of chronic underfunding,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement Sunday in support of the bill. Meanwhile, House Republicans are in the process of impeaching him, alleging that he has neglected his duties at the southern border.

A trigger mechanism to effectively ‘shut down’ the border

The bill includes a mechanism that would give the Department of Homeland Security the authority to quickly expel migrants caught crossing the border illegally if crossings have been particularly high for several days in a row.

That “border emergency” provision, which expires in three years, would automatically kick in when crossings reach an average of 5,000 per day over seven days, or 8,500 per day on a single calendar day. A president could choose to use the tool at a lower average of 4,000 per day over seven days.

Though advocates of the bill, including President Biden, have described this provision as one that would grant him new emergency authority to “shut down” the border when it becomes overwhelmed, the border would not be entirely closed. About 1,400 migrants would still be able to qualify for asylum at ports of entry, which would also remain open to conventional trade and travel.

Republican critics of the bill have seized on this provision in particular, claiming it would allow the Biden administration to “release” 5,000 migrants into the United States a day. Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), the GOP’s lead negotiator on the bill, has pushed back on that claim, saying it is the “most misunderstood section” of the bipartisan proposal.

“This is not about letting 5,000 people in a day,” Lankford told Fox News last month. “This is not someone standing at the border with a little clicker saying, ‘I’m going to let one more in. We’re at 4,999,’ and then it has to stop. It is a shutdown of the border and everyone actually gets turned around.”

The proposal would make it harder for migrants to apply for asylum if they crowd the border. Migrants also would face a higher standard of evidence at an initial screening to apply for asylum.

The bill also encourages quicker resolutions to asylum cases at the border — aiming to reduce the average time for an asylum claim to be resolved from several years to six months — and creates a new removal authority to speedily remove migrants who don’t qualify for asylum.

As mentioned in the section above, if crossings exceed the new limits and trigger a “shutdown” of the border, the Department of Homeland Security would also have the authority to refuse to consider asylum claims from migrants caught between ports of entry.

Notably, the bill does not include any new limits on Biden’s humanitarian parole powers for certain categories of migrants, which some Republicans had pushed for.

Increased visas, legal immigration pathways

The proposal adds thousands more family-based and employment-based visas, allowing work authorization for spouses of U.S. citizens awaiting immigrant visas and guaranteeing access to counsel for child migrants in removal proceedings.

The bill would authorize an additional 250,000 immigrant visas over the next five fiscal years, 64 percent of which would be family-based and 36 percent of which would be employment-based.

The legislation also allows for speedier work authorization for those who are probably eligible for asylum. The bill’s proponents have argued that the measure would ensure that the only migrants who get a work permit are those who have gone through a strenuous evaluation and who are probably going to be able to end up with asylum and remain in the United States.

Funding for Ukraine, Israel, the Indo-Pacific, humanitarian aid

The overall aid package includes $14 billion in assistance for Israel, $60 billion for Ukraine and $4.83 billion to Indo-Pacific nations. It also has $9.2 billion in humanitarian aid for civilians in Gaza, the West Bank, Ukraine and other nations, as well as $20 billion in U.S. border funds.

The bill explicitly denies federal funding to UNRWA, the U.N. agency that aids Palestinians, following allegations that 12 of its 13,000 employees were involved in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel.

Maria Sacchetti and Nick Miroff contributed to this report