Oklahoma RINO Senator James Lankford went on CBS and proudly defended his disastrous open borders bill that he co-authored with the Biden White House, claiming it would’ve been more effective than President Trump’s iron-fisted border enforcement.
Lankford, who faced a massive grassroots backlash last year for attempting to ram through a pro-amnesty, pro-cartel border deal with Democrats, is now telling Major Garrett that America would be “better off” today if his surrender document had passed.
It can be recalled that the Oklahoma County GOP censured Senator James Lankford for his role in a controversial border security deal that has failed to gain traction.
According to information obtained by FOX News reporter Bill Melugin, the deal included:
- Mandatory detention of all single adults.
- Mandatory “shut down” of border once average daily migrant encounters hits 5,000. Importantly, this 5,000 number includes 1,400 CBP One app entries at ports of entry per day, and roughly 3,600 illegal crossings per day.
- How is that enforced? Once the 5,000 threshold is hit, a new authority is codified into law that requires Border Patrol to immediately remove illegal immigrants they catch without processing. They would not get to request asylum, they would immediately be removed. This includes removals back to Mexico, and deportations to home countries. This would be a *massive* change from current policy, which is that once an illegal immigrant reaches US soil, they must be processed via Title 8 and allowed to claim asylum. Under this new authority – they are not processed, and they are mandatorily immediately removed once the “shut down” threshold is reached.
- This “shut down” also takes effect is there are 8,500 migrant encounters in a single day.
- The “shut down” would not lift the next day. It wouldn’t lift until daily encounters are reduced to under 75% of the 5,000 threshold for at least two weeks. This means the “shut down” authority would not lift until two weeks of an average of less than 3,750 migrant encounters per day.
- Some family units will be released with ATD (Alternatives to Detention, ankle monitors etc).
- New removal authority to immediately remove all migrants who do not have valid asylum claims, which will be determined within 6 months rather than the years long process we have right now.
- Any migrant caught trying to cross twice during “shut down” phase would be banned from entering US for one year.
- US will need agreement with Mexico for MX to take back non-Mexican illegal immigrants. This hasn’t been ironed out yet.
Lankford denied these claims and insisted that the legislation’s ultimate goal is to reduce illegal crossings to zero, claiming that there is no amnesty involved and that the bill would bolster border patrol resources, increase detention capacities, and streamline the asylum process to ensure swift deportations.
During the interview, Lankford even had the gall to suggest that his border bill — which would have codified catch-and-release, issued work permits to asylum claimants, and allowed 5,000 illegals in per day before enforcement kicked in — somehow would have reduced illegal crossings.
Major Garrett:
Looking back on the compromise you forged on immigration, do you think we’d be better off if that had happened, or are we better off now that it didn’t happen and we just have a different president?James Lankford:
We do have a different president that’s using the same law that’s been there for decades and actually enforcing it, and we’re seeing very different outcomes. Thinking about the bill that passed—it should have passed. It would have fixed a lot of the loopholes there in the law, and it would have been easier to be able to do enforcement now.Because one of the challenges that we have is, our asylum laws do include a lot of loopholes in them that cartels have exploited for years. They’ve become experts in exploiting our law because it’s billions of dollars of income to them when they can find those loopholes and gaps.
I heard a commentator just last week saying, “The courts are challenging these different ways that President Trump is enforcing the law. Somebody needs to bring up a bill.”
True story—somebody needs to bring up a bill to be able to close some of these loopholes. And it was a conservative commentator that was saying it, and I laughed, and I thought, I know somebody that brought one of them. I know a guy, and I know a bill that could do that.
Now, was the bill everything that I wanted? No. I was negotiating with the Democrat White House at the time to be able to get it done. But many of the areas that we need to close the loopholes were in that bill. Some form of that, we will eventually get done.
WATCH:
Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) says he believes the U.S. would be better off today had his bipartisan border bill passed last year, but tells @majorcbs “some form of that, eventually, we will get done.”
“It should have passed. It would have fixed a lot of loopholes in the law that… pic.twitter.com/01EOgvtLW3
— CBS News (@CBSNews) May 7, 2025
According to the White House, not a single illegal immigrant was released into the U.S. interior by Border Patrol in May, the New York Post reports.
“Border Patrol agents didn’t release a single migrant into the US last month — a staggering drop after the Biden administration allowed 62,000 illegal crossers in the country in May 2024, The Post can exclusively reveal.
Agents caught 8,725 migrants crossing illegally at the southern border last month. That’s a 93% decrease from May 2024, when 117,905 were nabbed, according to internal data obtained by The Post.
And Acting Customs and Border Protection commissioner Pete Flores said it’s a result of the Trump administration’s tough border policies.”
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