Immigration Reform News 2013: Border Surge Could Cut Inflow Of Undocumented By Half, Says CBO

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO), a nonpartisan government agency, said in a report released on Wednesday that the Senate's immigration reform bill could make the net inflow of undocumented immigrants to the United States fall from one-third to one-half of the current rates. The finding could give added leverage to the bill's supporters in their attempts to convince the GOP majority in the House to get on board with it despite its offer of a path of citizenship to the nation's undocumented -- a tenet that most Republican representatives see as a dealbreaker.

The CBO indicated that the latest version of the bill would clamp down on illegal immigration even more than the original version of the bill produced by the Senate Judiciary Committee. The committee's bill lacked a "border surge" amendment which called for an unprecedented appropriation of resources -- as much as $46 billion -- toward border surveillance technologies, fencing and an extra 20,000 members of the Border Patrol.

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The extra border security measures tacked on the Senate bill, wrote the Senate CBO, would clamp down on both the flow of people who enter the country without authorization. It would also strengthen enforcement actions against those who enter legally but remain after their authorization period has expired, the agency said. The previous CBO study on the Judiciary Committee's original bill found that it would do little to prevent these "visa overstays." About that first version, the CBO had also said it would reduce illegal immigration by about one-quarter.

The Washington Post estimates that the 14 million undocumented immigrants expected to reside in the United States by 2018 would shrink to about 5.5 million if the bill were passed into law, largely because about 7.7 million of those in the country would gain legal status.

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Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., one of the members of the Gang of Eight, said in a statement that the CBO analysis "once again vindicated immigration reform and shows how the amendment process improved the bill."

House Speaker John Boehner has said he won't introduce the Senate bill to the chamber floor, as the majority of Republican representatives oppose the path to citizenship it would offer to millions of the undocumented.