Exclusive — Mike Lee: ‘Increasingly Likely’ Pro-Migration Border Bill Doesn’t Make It Past First Cloture Vote

It is “increasingly likely” that the pro-migration border bill does not make it through the first cloture vote, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) said during an appearance on Breitbart News Daily, explaining that the measure is smoke and mirrors at best and “inviting more illegal immigration at worst.”

“I’m very confused by why they thought it was a good thing to put this border emergency authority in there,” Lee said when detailing the bill itself.

“Because right at first, it sounds like — and it was sold — as a good thing. It was sold as something that would sort of replicate Title 42 but without any requirement of a public health issue, like a pandemic,” he said, concluding that it was actually smoke and mirrors at best and “inviting more illegal immigration at worst.”

“So the idea that you’re going to not create the authority to quote unquote, shut down the border … you can’t even do it as a discretionary act until you get 4,000 migrant encounters per day, and that it doesn’t become mandatory … until it gets to 5,000,” he said, which is “perplexing.”

“Then you get to the fact that, well, we’re going to limit the number of days a year in which it can be invoked — 270 in the first year, 235 in the second, 180 days in the third year,” Lee explained.

“Add all of that to the fact that the President and the Homeland Security Secretary, can, as a matter of their own discretion, waive out a lot of these days. And you get to the point where I’m not sure that does anything other than appearing to provide some means by which you can secure the border,” he said, concluding it does nothing except “cause the drug cartels smuggling human traffic into this country, and along with it fentanyl to kill every American multiple times, you’re gonna cause them to schedule their shipments of people,” he said.

At this point, as more Republican senators are coming out against it, Lee said it is very possible that it will fail on the first cloture vote.

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“I’m now expecting that you’re gonna you’re gonna see Republicans turn against this, vote against cloture on it in the event that Chuck Schumer brings it up for a vote this week,” he said, explaining what a cloture vote is.

“You know, a cloture vote is a vote to bring debate to a close, and the first cloture vote you have in proceeding to a bill is called cloture on the motion to proceed. It takes 60 votes to get there. And so if all you need are for 41, senators to oppose cloture, and you can block 60, it’s looking increasingly likely that most — possibly even all Republicans — will oppose cloture, including Senator McConnell, and including Senator Lankford,” Lee revealed.

“We were paying we’re bracing for impact just a few days ago, and now we’re seeing that it’s likely not gonna survive at first cloture vote,” Lee continued, explaining the reality of dealing with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY).

“Very often when you get the top Republican and Democrat leader from the Senate, sometimes with the assistance of the other two or the other House, coming together to put something together, writing a bill in secret, and then unleashing it on the American people and their elected lawmakers, with only days or sometimes even hours to go before an artificially contrived deadline — a deadline I should add contrived by them — and then telling them you’ve got to pass this now because there’s an emergency or bad things are gonna happen if you don’t. That’s one of the ways that they get people to vote for things without reading them, and get people to vote for things before their constituents have had a chance to find out what’s in it,” Lee said, explaining that he has been begging for the text of this legislation for months.

“We finally got it. Once you have it, you don’t know how quickly they’re going to call it up for a vote. So I was up late into the night the other night when it came out, finding everything I could about it,” he said, stating during the interview that he “still can’t find what — if anything in here — really makes the border more secure.”

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