Here's What's in the Controversial Immigration Bill
Details the White House didn't mention
The much anticipated border bill is out. The White House says it “strongly supports” the proposed legislation, releasing a fact sheet late last night detailing its contents.
But a lot wasn’t included in the fact sheet.
So yours truly pored over the 370 page legislation, and here are some of the more noteworthy things I noticed the bill would do if passed into law (none of which were mentioned in the White House fact sheet):
Grant the Homeland Security Secretary the power to summarily deport undocumented immigrants at his "sole and unreviewable discretion" during border emergencies
Provide $25 million for Customs and Border Protection to conduct familial DNA testing and $204 million for the FBI for purposes including "the analysis of DNA samples, including those samples collected from migrants detained by the United States Border Patrol"
Provide $170 million for autonomous surveillance towers equipped with artificial intelligence
Provide $47.5 million for mobile surveillance, drones and counter-drone technology
Provide $25 million for tunnel detection capabilities
Provide $10 million to process data from drone boats
The proposal also contains a foreign aid package which includes military aid for Israel. Here’s how the White House fact sheet described the Israel aid:
“Authorizes the United States to provide additional military aid to help Israel defend itself from Hamas, which committed horrific acts of terror on October 7th, and whose leaders have pledged to repeat the attacks of October 7th over and over again until Israel is annihilated. “
“The aid in this agreement will also help Israel replenish its air defenses and ensure it is prepared for any future contingencies.”
And here’s what I found in the legislation:
Provide Israel with an additional $3.5 billion in foreign military financing. There would also be no requirement to notify Congress about how this money is spent if the Secretary of State determines it is "in the national security interest of the United States" not to notify them
It’s important to read the primary source documents because you miss out on a lot of details when you rely on the government or even media to paraphrase things. Media itself is often relying on government officials or advocacy groups to explain documents to them and rarely go beyond the executive summaries provided to them.
That’s one of the things I’d like to do with this newsletter: pore over the primary source record so you don’t have to. Please help me do that by becoming a paid subscriber. I can’t do this without your support.