Sen. James Lankford (R-OK), the GOP co-author of a bipartisan Senate border bill, offered some advice to former President Donald Trump on what will work to reduce illegal border crossings.
Lankford visited southeast Arizona this week to see firsthand how the Biden-Harris administration had reduced illegal border crossings and what more needs to be done.
While Trump opposed Lankford’s bipartisan border legislation , which failed in the Senate, the Republican hasn’t stopped seeking solutions.
In an interview with the Washington Examiner, Lankford shared a formula for controlling immigration and the nation’s borders if the Republican presidential nominee is elected next month.
1. No more CBP One app admissions
The Customs and Border Protection's One app existed prior to the Biden-Harris administration and was used for commercial trade to upload manifests of what they were carrying for customs officers at ports of entry to look over before arriving for inspection. CBP handles sea, air, and land ports of entry, as well as activity between land ports, including the CBP One app.
The Biden-Harris administration added two functions to the app that allowed immigrants outside the United States to apply to be admitted. The move was intended to give immigrants a way to seek admission without illegally coming over the southern border between ports of entry, but Republicans have criticized it as a backdoor to admit tens of thousands of people into the country each month just because they did not cross the border illegally.
The CBP One app allows immigrants from four countries, Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, to apply to enter the U.S. on parole, which allows an individual to remain for two years and receive a work permit. Recipients must have a sponsor in the U.S. and pay for their international flight. Since the process was fully rolled out in January 2023, more than half a million people have been admitted.
The app's second function is to allow immigrants in Mexico to schedule an appointment at a land port of entry on the southern border to meet with U.S. customs officers. Up to 1,450 appointments can be scheduled daily. Immigrants who schedule appointments wait months to be seen at one of eight ports of entry used for appointments.
The app itself facilitates scheduling appointments and submitting information. Lankford said Homeland Security officials who screen and vet immigrants do not know the full extent of an applicant's background, given that some countries do not share criminal databases with the U.S.
"That was one of the things I wanted to be able to see today, was to go through the entire process to see how long it takes from start to finish," said Lankford, who walked through the appointment process with immigrants who arrived at the DeConcini port of entry in Nogales on Thursday.
Immigrants who arrived before 9 a.m. were let into the country by 1 p.m., when another round of appointments began, and were released by 5 p.m. The process was intentionally intended to keep people coming in and out "very quickly" because it was "what the administration is requiring," he said.
"We have people that are coming through consistently that have no photo ID. They just have what their name is. They filled out a piece of paper or filled out the application, and they show up with a piece of paper saying, 'This is who I am,'" said Lankford. "We cannot hand work permits to people because they signed up on an app and they have no criminal background that we know of."
For national security reasons, Lankford said he had "no doubt" that Trump would immediately shut down the CBP One app's immigration functions.
"If you want to talk about something that changes day one of the new president, the numbers drop by 1,600 the very first day because that would get turned off to say we're not going to just have an open border where we hand people work permits and say for the next two years, you can go anywhere you want in the country, and all we need to know is you don't have a criminal history that we know of in your country," said Lankford.
2. Expand expedited removals
Part of the reason that the number of illegal immigrants arrested crossing the border has declined from nearly 250,000 last December alone to roughly 55,000 in September is due to the Biden administration's increased use of a process known as expedited removal.
"It's kind of remarkable to be able to see the expedited removal they're actually implementing and using, and they're seeing fewer people actually come as people are turned around," said Lankford. "The administration is finally implementing some of the policies they turned off, quite frankly, after President Trump left office. ... They turned some of those back on, and magically, it seems to be making a difference."
Expedited removal is an immigration process outlined in the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act that largely allows Border Patrol agents to remove immigrants because a court hearing is not required.
The Biden-Harris administration expanded the expedited removal process in late July, allowing more immigrants to be swiftly deported, often in less than a day after crossing the border. Expedited removal orders cannot be appealed, avoiding delays for border officials.
Unless an individual makes an asylum claim in that process, it cannot be stopped.
"The administration ... was proactively asking people, 'Don't you have fear?'" said Lankford. "If you ask them, 'Are you afraid at home?' They'll say, 'Of course.' If you don't ask, they don't bring it up. And so they're not actually requesting the asylum at the same level because the administration has instructed them not to go ask them to ask."
CBP confirmed that, as part of the July 23 proclamation, it is no longer asking immigrants in custody if they fear being returned home.
3. Create a non-detained docket
In the Senate border bill, which Lankford spent several months drafting and pitching alongside Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) and Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), was language to create a non-detained docket for expedited removal.
Such a plan would allow federal immigration officials to quickly resolve and possibly remove immigrants from the country when facilities at the border are maxed out of capacity to hold people.
At present, expedited removal can only happen at the border for people in custody, but Lankford said a possible Trump-Vance administration ought to create a court docket that can avoid releasing people on parole or without fully being tracked by the federal government.
"That's a very significant structural change that most people don't understand how incredibly significant that is, moving the process for asylum, that you would take the rules at the end and move it to the beginning so that you have a faster decision-making process that is locked in a higher standard for evidence. All of those things make a significant difference," said Lankford.
Lankford's plan was in the Senate border bill and would reverse current law to require immigrants released to be enrolled in the Alternatives to Detention program to ensure they are being tracked in the country and not just told to show up for a future court date.
4. Hire more CBP agents and build up infrastructure
CBP is comprised of three components: the Border Patrol, Office of Field Operations, and Air and Marine Operations. Border Patrol is based between the land ports of entry, while OFO works land, air, and sea ports of entry. AMO agents carry out border security missions by plane, helicopter, and boat.
CBP was created in the aftermath of 9/11, and many employees are aging out after working for two decades.
The 19,000-employee Border Patrol has lost nearly a quarter of its workforce since President Joe Biden beat Trump in the 2020 presidential election.
"We've got to deal with the hiring because we've got to be able to keep people on the line," said Lankford. "We've got an awful lot of folks in all entities along the border that are prime for retirement, and we don't have enough people in the pipeline to come in and be able to fill those spots. So we've got to be able to work on the hiring authorities in the process. It takes way too long."
Lankford toured southeastern Arizona with all three CBP components, including a night tour with the National Border Patrol Council and the Border Patrol Union.
One vulnerability that he saw was the remoteness of some parts of the border and the hours-long drive between the border and facilities where they could process and hold immigrants.
Not only was there a need to boost the number of new hires but also for Border Patrol stations with holding space and permanent processing facilities rather than the costly pop-up tents that CBP had relied on at times when it was short buildings to hold people in custody.
"The Three Points Station there in southern Arizona. We need to be able to expand that station," said Lankford. "Once [illegal immigrants are] scooped up and in that area of Arizona, it's almost three hours before they can actually get them to an area to be able to hold them and detain them. That's incredibly inefficient, and I think it's going to continue to be a vulnerable spot for us, so we've got to be able to deal with some of those practical aspects of some of those stations and locations to be able to make sure that we're not squandering an officer's time based on just traveling to the workstation rather than actually being on site."
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Given the gaps in border wall projects due to the Biden-Harris administration's canceling of projects green-lighted during the Trump administration, Lankford anticipates the region will remain vulnerable to illegal immigration given the Sinaloa Cartel's control across the border.
"Where that gap in the fence is — that's where people are coming through," said Lankford. "There was also someone that put a sticker on the fence at that spot where there's the gap in the fence. They put a 'No Trump' sticker on the fence, on the last, on the last slat of the fence."
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