Republicans Passed the One Big Beautiful Bill to Secure Our Borders—Here's What We Must Do Next

Newsweek

20 hours ago

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The One Big Beautiful Bill Act was the product of many months of hard work by Congress and the unwavering leadership of President Donald Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson. The legislation stands as a landmark achievement, and it represents a sea change for border security and immigration enforcement.
That change is long overdue, particularly as we work to undo the devastation of the Biden-Harris border crisis.
President Donald Trump and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson speak to members of the media at the U.S. Capitol on May 20, 2025, in Washington, D.C.
President Donald Trump and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson speak to members of the media at the U.S. Capitol on May 20, 2025, in Washington, D.C.Powering the turnaround are historic investments in Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Among other achievements, Republicans approved more than $46 billion to finish construction of the strategic border barrier system, $45 billion to expand ICE's ability to detain illegal aliens, and approximately $35 billion to recruit, hire, and retain thousands more CBP and ICE officers, agents, and support personnel.
But the work to ensure long-lasting border security and interior enforcement is far from over. While Republicans maintain majorities in Washington, we must advance the ball even further.
There are three key areas in which we still have a long way to go—but the path is clear.
First, we must act quickly to codify President Trump's executive orders. As we learned when President Joe Biden took office and ended essentially every effective border security and enforcement policy of the first Trump administration, executive actions can be undone—sometimes with devastating consequences.
If we want the policy wins of the second Trump administration to be guaranteed for future generations, we must turn those executive orders into law.
The reconciliation process allowed us to secure many key victories, but the rules of that process also prevented us from enacting policy changes without a clear fiscal impact. That means there are numerous reforms still on the table demanding our attention and action.
For starters, to prevent future abuse of our immigration laws and protect our families and communities from the scourge of the fentanyl crisis, we must advance and expand upon the policies put forward in H.R.2, the Secure the Border Act, a historic border security and immigration reform bill that passed the House last Congress but was ignored by the Democrat-led Senate. Some of those reforms include explicitly prohibiting mass parole and nationality-based parole programs, closing asylum and catch-and-release loopholes, expanding expedited removal, cracking down on visa overstays, and expanding grounds for inadmissibility.
The American people support such strong measures. They resoundingly endorsed these policies in the 2024 election after President Trump ran on a platform of mass deportations. Poll after poll shows continued support for that platform, despite increasingly outrageous Democrat rhetoric.
Second, Republicans need to ramp up our investigative and accountability efforts, starting with looking deeply into the Biden-era officials who crafted, implemented, and defended the unlawful open-borders policies that caused untold harm to our nation.
The burgeoning "auto-pen" scandal of the Biden administration—which casts into doubt whether President Biden was of sound mind and personally responsible for many of the policy decisions of his administration, even from its earliest days—sparks some troubling questions. Chief among these is how many of the radical policy decisions on border security and immigration enforcement were driven not by the president, but by others in the White House who saw the opportunity to systemically undermine longstanding U.S. immigration law in pursuit of open-borders, anti-enforcement policies?
We have already identified a number of individuals involved in the Biden transition team and the administration that played a role in this crisis, and we must aggressively expand our investigation into them and pursue accountability where we can.
Third and finally, we need to hold accountable the nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that helped facilitate the Biden-Harris administration's border crisis. The House Committee on Homeland Security has devoted substantial time and effort into uncovering how these NGOs served as a conduit for illegal immigration under the previous administration, often to their own substantial financial benefit.
A few weeks ago, we sent a letter to more than 200 NGOs suspected of providing services and benefits to illegal aliens, seeking information about how these groups have used federal taxpayer dollars. We need to expand these probes, and as chairman of the Committee's Border Security and Enforcement Subcommittee, I fully intend to do so.
No organization should be allowed to subvert or undermine U.S. laws, and they most certainly should not be doing so with taxpayer money. Unfortunately, that is exactly what happened under Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, and we need to not only prevent further abuse via legislative solutions but also demonstrate that those who do will answer for their actions.
This is a bold agenda for the House Republican conference and the House Committee on Homeland Security. But the American people have spoken unequivocally. Just like President Trump, they want the border secured, illegal aliens removed, and their communities made safe. They also want accountability for the harm caused to our country and a firm commitment to advancing President Trump's proven border security agenda.
We must show that we are up to the task.
Congressman Michael Guest is the chairman of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Border Security and Enforcement and is currently serving his fourth term as the U.S. representative for Mississippi's 3rd Congressional District.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.