Immigrants wait overnight next to the U.S.-Mexico border fence to seek asylum in the United States on Jan. 07, 2023 as viewed from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)
Maine’s U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree told Maine Morning Star she hopes Congress will resume bipartisan immigration reform negotiations next session.
“Democrats and Republicans alike agree the border is a serious issue and must be urgently addressed,” Pingree wrote in a statement. While she had some concerns with the bipartisan border security bill considered last session, she wrote, “I appreciated the bipartisan effort to come to a compromise position.”
After months of negotiations, that bipartisan deal fell apart just days after it was introduced. However, the policy proposals within it may still be a starting point for reform in 2025. Pingree hopes so.
Pingree, who has held southern Maine’s U.S. House seat since 2009, will be facing two challengers, Republican Ron Russell and independent Ethan Alcorn, in the Nov. 5 election.
Maine Morning Star asked candidates for the 1st District U.S. House seat whether they’d support the policies in the failed bipartisan deal. Specifically, the candidates shared their stance on three planks of the deal: creating a procedure to shut down the border at particularly active times, increasing funding for personnel and expanded capabilities at the nation’s borders, and shortening the wait period for asylum seekers to obtain work permits.
Here’s how Pingree’s immigration policy stances stack up against her challengers:
Pingree backed the immigration reform negotiated by a bipartisan group of lawmakers when it was originally proposed as a larger package including foreign aid. However, that package lost Republican support after Trump opposed it, arguing it would be a political gift to President Joe Biden.
“Let’s be clear,” Pingree wrote in a statement, “The bipartisan border bill was killed on Donald Trump’s orders because he cares more about campaigning on chaos than supporting solutions that help America.”
Later considered as a standalone Senate bill, the immigration reforms again failed, receiving even less support than the combined measure.
Alcorn declined to say whether he would have supported the bipartisan border security legislation overall, or the three planks of the deal Maine Morning Star asked him about. Meanwhile, Russell said he would not have supported the legislation.
In response to questions about his stance on the policies in the bill, Alcorn said, “We need some immigration, just not so much that we can’t afford to pay for them.”
Alcorn previously told Maine Morning Star that he wants to see Congress tighten the border, “but more importantly, stop handing out everything at taxpayers’ expense,” Alcorn said. “It sends the wrong signal.”
As an alternative to the bipartisan deal, Russell said he would support H.R. 2 as passed by the U.S. Congress. This bill mirrors Trump-era immigration policies. It would resume the hundreds of miles of construction of a border wall, strip funding from nonprofits that aid migrants, beef up staffing of Border Patrol agents and restrict the use of humanitarian parole programs that the Biden administration has used to allow nationals from Haiti, Cuba, Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Ukraine and Venezuela to work temporarily in the U.S.
In the bipartisan deal, one of the specific reforms had been allowing for the border to be shut down at particularly active times.
The bill would have given the secretary of Homeland Security the option to shut down the border if, during a period of seven consecutive days, more than 4,000 encounters are recorded with migrants. If that number reached 5,000 encounters for a period of seven consecutive days, the U.S. would be required to shut down the border. The only way the border would be shut down within one day would be if there is a combined total of 8,500 migrants encountered.
Russell believes this policy did not go far enough.
“The border should be shut down at illegal crossing points now, not just during particularly active times,” Russell said. “We should not allow any illegal immigrants to cross any borders we have.”
The bipartisan package also included $20.23 billion for border security, including increasing personnel and overall capacity. Russel said he would support such funding, for officers for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, as well as for more immigration judges to speed up the asylum approval process.
Another change in the bipartisan deal had been a shorter timeline for asylum seekers to obtain work permits, an issue Pingree has attempted to address through her own legislation, too.
Pingree introduced a bill in the House to shorten the waiting period to obtain a work permit from 180 days after filing for asylum to 30 days. Her counterparts from Maine in the Senate, Republican Susan Collins and independent Angus King, have also proposed similar legislation, however their plan would require asylum seekers to enter the U.S. through an official port of entry.
For that reason, Pingree’s version is the preferred choice of many immigrant rights groups in Maine.
Pingree told Maine Morning Star she wants to shorten the waiting period because she believes it would benefit both asylum seekers and local economies, particularly in areas like Maine that face workforce shortages.
“While any legislation related to immigration faces challenges in Congress, I remain committed to pushing for the common sense solutions in my bill and believe that momentum will continue to grow amid a growing bipartisan recognition of the need to address nationwide labor shortages,” Pingree wrote.
Alcorn did not say whether he’d support shortening the work permit waiting period. Russell said he is not supportive of the measure, equating it to “closing the barn door after the horse has escaped.”
“We are fixing a problem that we created by allowing ‘asylum seekers’ to wait for their court appearances in the United States,” Russell said. “Oftentimes those court appearances are scheduled years following their asylum claims.” Referencing his other stances, Russell added that he would instead close the borders and “hold all asylum seekers outside our borders. This will fix the problem.”
Curious about the immigration policy positions of Maine’s other candidates for U.S. Congress? Read about the stances of Maine’s candidates for the U.S. House for the 2nd Congressional District, as well as the U.S. Senate.
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