Republican Breaks With GOP's Border Bill

A Republican lawmaker has broken with the rest of the GOP over a border security bill that is currently being drafted.

House Republicans are attempting to put together new border protection legislation as the topic has once again entered the national spotlight. Title 42, the public health measure enacted by Donald Trump in March 2020, had previously allowed Border Patrol agents to rapidly expel migrants back over the southern border on the grounds of preventing the potential spread of COVID-19, but is now set to expire on May 11. At the same time, regions along the border are seeing major surges in crossings, with agents in on Gulf Coast region reporting around 30,000 since mid-April.

Republicans have hammered on border security as an alleged failure of President Joe Biden since the beginning of his administration two years, often claiming the situation to be a "crisis." Various crises in Central and South American nations have, in fact, led to historic amounts of illegal crossings during Biden's first term.

Now, as the House GOP works to fashion a border security bill, at least one Republican representative, Thomas Massie of Kentucky, has reportedly said that he plans to vote against the bill in its current state. The news originated from CNN Capitol Hill correspondent Melanie Zanona during a general update on the process from Monday.

"Rep. Thomas Massie will vote against the GOP's border bill," Zanona tweeted. "While Rep. Dan Crenshaw [of Texas] has not committed his support, per their offices. Majority Leader [Steve] Scalise tells me they've been working thru concerns but confident it'll pass."

Zanona added in a subsequent tweet that the congressmen's issues with the current bill differed. Massie, she explained, took issue with parts of the language concerning E-Verify, a program that allows employers to track if certain employees are authorized to work in the U.S. Crenshaw, meanwhile, is concerned that the bill does not do enough to crack down on cartels.

"Congressman Massie will be voting against HR 2 due to his opposition to the E-verify provisions it contains," a spokesman for Massie wrote in a statement to Newsweek.

The spokesman also directed Newsweek to a tweet in which the congressman compared E-Verify to vaccine mandates for employment. In a later tweet responding to another Twitter user, Massie referred to the legislation as "an otherwise good immigration bill."

Massie is reportedly not alone in his concerns, as the Associated Press noted in a report that other representatives for agriculturally focused districts in Texas have expressed similar concerns about employee verification requirements.

House Republicans are aiming to get their bill, dubbed the Secure the Border Act, on Thursday, the same day that Title 42 expires. As noted by the Associated Press, hesitant Republicans in the House are not the bill's only obstacles, as it faces dire odds of passing in the Democrat-controlled Senate. Biden has also pledged to veto the bill, were it to make it all the way to his desk.

Updated 05/09/2023 12:16 p.m. ET: Added response from Representative Massie spokesman.