House GOP launches secure-borders bill

House Republicans are officially launching their immigration reform effort Wednesday, with a border security bill aimed at keeping unlawful immigrants from entering the United States. The bill could become the first in a series of measures Republicans take up in what they have promised will be a piecemeal approach to immigration reform in the new GOP-majority Congress. Republican senators, led by Homeland Security Committee Chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wis., are drafting companion legislation. If the measure clears congress, it could pose a political challenge for President Obama, who so far this year has threatened to veto most GOP legislation, but who has also struggled to control an influx of tens of thousands of illegal migrants, many of them children, in the past year. The bill, however, excludes provisions that would address Obama’s recent executive actions that aim to stem deportations and provide work permits for millions of people already living here illegally. The legislation would require the Department of Homeland Security to achieve “operational control” of heavily trafficked border areas within two years and control of the nation’s entire southwest border within five years. The bill calls for completion of the southern border fence by filling in and completing miles of existing gaps and constructing 27 miles of new fencing. It would also allow border patrol agents access to restricted federal lands that are used by illegal immigrants to sneak into the country. And it would require implementing new biometric identity security measures at all points of entry into the United States within five years...more