President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” will bolster the security apparatus established along the U.S.-Mexico border, GOP supporters and law enforcement officials say.
While the Trump administration has succeeded in cutting illegal immigration to historical levels in the past several months, border hawks contend that more resources can be deployed to double down on these gains and provide frontline support to Customs and Border Protection (CBP). The budget reconciliation bill, recently passed by House Republicans, would supercharge border security by the tune of billions of dollars.
“Just being able to respond to areas that we’ve detected incursions, that right there would make a significant impact,” Detective Cody Essary of the Cochise County Sheriff’s Office — whose jurisdiction that spreads across Arizona’s southeast border with Mexico — said during a visit by Kansas GOP Sen. Roger Marshall. The detective suggested the added manpower and border technology from the legislation would be a game changer.
“Whether it’s people just being smuggled across or people that are smuggling drugs across, being able to make those apprehensions is what changes the formula in this area,” Essary continued.
Under the Biden administration, border agents were slammed with the chaotic levels of illegal immigration, with fiscal years 2023 and 2024 being the highest and second highest, respectively, of recorded migrant encounters, according to CBP data. However, circumstances changed drastically with the change of administrations.
Following a slate of executive orders and other administrative actions from the Trump White House, the southern border went from crisis-level encounters down to historically low migrant crossings. Touting the progress made within the administration’s first 100 days, the White House in April stated that daily border encounters fell 93% and migrant crossings dropped by 99.99%.
While much success has already been realized, GOP supporters say a boost in spending would likely amplify gains.
“Having visited the southern border multiple times under the Biden-Harris Administration, I witnessed chaos, lawlessness, and a system overwhelmed by over 10 million illegal crossings – including individuals on the FBI’s terrorist watchlist,” Marshall said in a prepared statement. “What I’ve witnessed firsthand at the border proves that President Trump’s bold leadership is delivering results, and he is keeping his promises.”
“To continue delivering on the President’s agenda, the Senate must pass the ‘One Big, Beautiful Bill’ – legislation that will provide critical funding our border agencies need to keep America safe,” Marshall continued.
Earlier in May, the House of Representatives voted largely along party lines to pass Trump’s “one big, beautiful bill,” which is expected to be voted on by the upper chamber of Congress in July before landing on the president’s desk. On top of boosting defense spending by nearly $150 billion and extending the expiring provisions on the president’s 2017 tax cuts, the massive reconciliation bill aims to devote over $100 billion in new funding for border security and immigration enforcement.
GOP supporters specifically hailed upgrades in border technology within the legislation, including added spending in non-intrusive inspection technology for CBP agents at ports of entry and boosts in border surveillance technology from unmanned aircraft systems to tunnel detection capabilities. The bill also aims to bolster Air and Marine Operations with enhanced surveillance technology and CBP’s biometric entry and exit system, helping border officials better detect fraud.
For those working on the front line like Essary, the force needs additional help. The reconciliation bill would hire and train thousands of new Border Patrol agents if signed into law.
“I know a lot of people like to focus on the technology aspect, and it is important, but at the end of the day, if you don’t have the agents to respond and make those apprehensions, that technology is just a counting tool,” Essary said. “Agents on the ground, accompanying that technology, is really the key to success from what we’ve seen in our experience in Cochise County.”
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