Graham authors $4.4 Billion Immigration Amendement
According to Fox News, Senator Lindsey Graham has authored a $4.4 billion immigration amendment to secure Republican confidence.
Fox News: Senate Republicans Work $4.4 Billion Border Security Amendment
GOP negotiators of an immigration reform bill are crafting a large border security amendment with mandatory, immediate funding that they hope will assuage concerns of both Republicans and Democrats, FOX News has learned.
The senators are looking at a way to please conservatives who are skeptical Congress will ever fund the bill’s border security provisions, as well as keep Democratic negotiators on board in a last ditch effort to save the comprehensive reform bill.
It is a political tightrope fraught with peril, but the members know they need more Republican support to break through the logjam.
South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, a principle author of the amendment with Republican Sens. Jon Kyl and Mel Martinez, says his amendment is designed to be “a confidence builder” to address members’ concerns that ramped up border security provisions in the bill won’t, in the end, get funded.
Graham hopes to provide $4.4 billion the day the bill is signed, through an estimate in fees and fines in the current immigration bill, to be used to beef up all the border security measures in the bill, with an additional $800 million for further measures, taking from measures put forward last year by New Hampshire Sen. Judd Gregg who called for more investment in capital infrastructure, like unmanned aerial vehicles and new Coast Guard boats.