The Senate finally has a great asylum bill

August 14, 2026

author Published by Jeremy Beck

Facebook

For the first time this Congress, permanent border security bills are moving in both chambers.

The Senate finally has a bill to permanently close the asylum loopholes that made the last border crisis possible: Sen. Mike Lee’s Stopping Border Surges Act (S. 5371), with six cosponsors.

Every other Senator now has a choice: help prevent the next border crisis, or explain why they won’t.

In the House, we’re calling on leadership to bring Rep. Roy’s H.R. 9773 to the floor for a vote.

If Congress was sent to Washington to do one thing on immigration, it was to make sure the last border crisis never happens again.

Time is running out and there is so much at stake.

The last border crisis was the worst in U.S. history. It broke the asylum system, overwhelmed schools, swamped local budgets, stressed natural resources, worsened housing affordability, and displaced vulnerable Americans.

Most Americans believe this was deliberate.

Congress can’t assume it couldn’t happen again. They have to ensure it doesn’t.

With This Congress 80% Complete, The Average Immigration-Reduction Grade is a “D”

If the 119th Congress ended today, the average grade would be among the lowest since NumbersUSA began recording them thirty years ago.

The historically low average grade reflects two realities:

The Democratic Party has become firmly committed to immigration policies that displace American workers and suppress wages.
The Republican Party has fewer committed champions of immigration control than it could claim thirty years ago.

In the age of Barbara Jordan, 32 Democrats earned an A+ NumbersUSA Grade.

102 Republicans earned an A+ in 1996 as well (only 35 Republicans have an A+ in 2026 as of this writing).

Current Grades for the 119th Congress – All Members

🟢 A’s — 61

🔵 B’s — 124

🟡 C’s — 70

🟠 D’s — 24

🔴 F’s — 255

Find all of the grades here.

Our responsibility doesn’t end at the ballot box. We need more of our fellow citizens to push their elected officials between elections.

Elections

Mike Lindell, the Trump-endorsed Republican candidate for Minnesota’s governor, had a healthy lead in the polls when he proposed granting unauthorized aliens work visas earlier this summer.

The backlash was swift. He lost this week by 11 points.

In Other News

13 million Americans want a full-time job but can’t find one. Real wages have stagnated over the past year.
Nearly 2 million applications for foreign-worker permits are currently pending.
The U.S. issued 1.3 million permanent work permits to immigrants in 2025.

This Week In Immigration History

August 12, 1995: Barbara Jordan, Chair of the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform, gave her address at the United We Stand conference in Texas.

“Many American workers do not have adequate job prospects,” she said. “We should make their task easier to find employment, not harder.”

NumbersUSA In The News

Newsweek asked me what I made of Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s new task force going after birth tourism rings.

“Birth tourism undermines the integrity of birthright citizenship as asylum shopping undermines our humanitarian programs,” I said. Congress can make tourists inadmissible when their intent is to have a baby for citizenship purposes. We’re supporting Sen. Marsha Blackburn’s S. 5023 and Rep. Rich McCormick’s H.R. 9919 to do just that.

I made the expanded case in my oped for Townhall on Tuesday, “Congress Can Still Act On Birthright Citizenship”:

“Whether the Court ultimately cements birthright citizenship for illegal aliens or not, Congress has the power to dramatically reduce its consequences now. Lawmakers should permanently secure the border, mandate E-Verify, and eliminate the incentives that encourage illegal immigration. None of those reforms depends on the Court changing its mind.”

My colleague Jim Robb joined The Bill Martinez Show to talk about Sen. Lee’s asylum bill as well as some of the worst ideas percolating in Congress (1:33:19). Watch a clip here.

I talked with KVEO-TV in Harlingen, Texas (8:39) to explain how a new DHS rule will send weak asylum claims straight to an immigration judge, reducing the backlog, closing a loophole, and opening up slots for legitimate asylum seekers.

And on the Lars Larson Show last Friday (29:02), I talked about sixty thousand migrants overwhelming Spain’s border in roughly a single day and why no American should assume our own border is permanently fixed.