HELENA – Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen joined a coalition of 15 attorneys general in opposition to the United States Senate’s “border bill” that will fail to solve the crises at the southern border. The bill was proposed after negotiations with the Biden White House.

In a letter sent Tuesday to Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell the attorneys general highlight the bill’s failure to solve the problems contributing to high volumes of encounters at the southern border and call on Congress to authorize the States to enforce existing federal immigration laws.

“Biden and Mayorkas do not need new powers or new programs. They need to be held accountable for dismantling border security and for refusing to enforce the clear immigration statutes that are already on the books,” the attorneys general wrote. “We implore our lawmakers to return to the basics: eliminate incentives for aliens to come to the country, eliminate policies, definitions, and loopholes that allow them to illegitimately enter and stay, and credibly fortify national deportation efforts.”

The attorneys general are objecting to the fact the bill ties immigration enforcement and border security to foreign aid, sets an arbitrary baseline number of encounters equivalent to crisis-level volume the country is experiencing under President Biden, ties funding for Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to pursue deportations to the other provisions in the bill, continues to use public funding to fund “nonprofit” organizations drawing millions of new arrivals to the US, and gives the District Court for the District of Columbia the sole jurisdiction to hear legal and constitution challenges to the provisions of the proposal.

Rather than pass a bill that will not solve the problem, the attorneys general are calling on Congress to instead hold the Biden administration accountable for destroying overall border security and refusing to enforce protective Constitutional measures already centuries in place.

“Make no mistake, we would support—and our country needs—stronger immigration laws, but this border crisis was not created by the immigration laws themselves. It was created by an administration that has refused to enforce the law at the border in any meaningful way,” the attorneys general wrote.

Click here to read the letter.

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