Katko rips Biden immigration plan: 'Shift toward open borders'

The legislation would provide an eight-year pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants and allow Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipients — people who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children — to have a shorter timeline to obtain legal status. 

Biden's proposal also aims to increase funding for certain border security measures, such as technology that can be used to detect drugs entering the country. 

Democrats control both houses of Congress, but would need at least 10 Republican senators to support the bill. While the bill was introduced by Democrats, Biden insists that the immigration reform plan reflects American priorities. 

"The legislation I sent to Congress will bring about much-needed change to an immigration system where reform is long overdue," Biden said. "It will responsibly manage the border with smart investments. It will address the root causes of irregular migration from Central America. It will modernize our legal immigration pathways and create an earned path to citizenship for so many — including Dreamers, farmworkers and (Temporary Protected Status) holders." 

But Katko, who is the ranking GOP member of the House Homeland Security Committee, panned the bill. He said the legislation "appears to be a compilation of immigration activists' wish lists that glaringly fails to include many commonsense measures to secure our borders and reform loopholes in our immigration system." 

Katko has long said that any immigration reform legislation should include border security — a position he reiterated in his statement Thursday. While Biden's proposal does include border security provisions, Katko says they would require the Department of Homeland Security to develop plans that are either mandated by Congress or already exist. 

"It, therefore, would not result in substantial and needed improvements at the border, while at the same time calling for immediate action on a broad range of immigration law changes," he said. 

Last month, Biden issued a series of executive orders in his first few days in office. Some of the orders rolled back former President Donald Trump's actions on immigration. He terminated the national emergency declared by Trump to divert funds to construct a wall along the southern border. He also took action to preserve the DACA program, which was targeted during the Trump administration. 

When Biden signed those orders, Katko aired his disapproval. He singled out the president's immigration-focused orders as a "knee-jerk rollback of commonsense national security and immigration measures to secure our borders." 

Now, with Biden's immigration reform proposal introduced in Congress, Katko doubled down on his opposition to the president's actions on immigration. 

"This bill as-is does not represent a tenable path forward to improve our broken immigration system and secure our border in a meaningful way," Katko said. "As the lead Republican of the Committee on Homeland Security, I welcome an honest policy discussion about the changes Congress needs to make to secure the border, and the lukewarm provisions in this bill do not come close."