Republican Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton said Sunday that President Joe Biden’s immigration bill is too “far to the left” and will be “dead on arrival” by the time it arrives in the Senate.
“The bill that Joe Biden sent last week I think will be dead on arrival. It’s far to the left of any immigration bill that Congress has considered,” Cotton told Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.”
WATCH:
Biden’s eight-year path to citizenship plan would allow all illegal immigrants living in the U.S. by Jan. 1, 2021 to achieve temporary legal status in five years and to apply for citizenship after an additional three years. Individuals would be expected to pay taxes and be subject to a background check during this process. (RELATED: ‘We’re Going To Send A Vast Majority Of You Back’: How Joe Biden Handled A Migrant Crisis In 2014)
Cotton argued that the bill, announced last week amid a flurry of executive orders from the new president, “would flood the labor markets with millions of unskilled migrants whether they’re here presently as illegal aliens or they’re rushing to the border now.”
The senator said the potential legislation would hit “working class Americans” who could lose their jobs or have their wages driven down by cheap labor.
Comparing Biden’s immigration policy to a folk song, Cotton said that the president has “announced to the entire world that it’s ‘Ali Ali Oxen Free’ at our border,” and noted that Biden has stopped building the border wall while “allowing people showing up at our border, making bogus claims of asylum to come into the country to be released to come back … for a hearing months or years later.”
“We had a strong agreement with Mexico which was keeping these migrants in Mexico while their asylum claims could be adjudicated. For no reason, Joe Biden tore up that agreement.” (RELATED: President Joe Biden’s Immigration Reforms Could Prompt A Surge Of Migrants At The Southern Border, Expert Says)
Honduran migrants walk towards the Honduras-Guatemala border as part of their journey to the U.S. on Jan. 15, 2021 in Nueva Arcadia, Honduras. The caravan plans to walk across Guatemala and Mexico to eventually reach the United States. (Photo by Milo Espinoza/Getty Images)
Cotton predicted there would be more surges at the border: “You already see some caravans coming through Central America. I suspect they’re going to get much larger very soon.”
The Biden administration is not encouraging migrants to cross the southern border and has attempted to reduce expectations of mass asylum by suggesting the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is a strong reason to continue to restrict immigration.
