WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, U.S. Senator Angus King (I-ME) joined several of his colleagues in urging Senate leadership to pursue bipartisan solutions on border security and immigration policy. In the letter to Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune, King and his colleagues underscore the importance of working together to craft legislation that can achieve 60 votes in the Senate and fix the immigration system to meet the current needs of the economy.

“We write regarding the pressing border security and immigration needs facing our country. As we have shown, Democrats and Republicans can work together on real bipartisan solutions,” the Senators write. “We can solve big challenges when we work together, and there is much work to do to improve border security, protect Dreamers and farmworkers, and fix our immigration system to better reflect the needs of our country and our modern economy.”

The Senators continued, “…There is a lot of common ground for us to start on. We see a need for strong, commonsense, and fair immigration enforcement accompanied by the necessary resources to effectively secure our borders. That’s important for our national security and to support border states. We also see a need for a firm but fair immigration system that streamlines processes and better addresses our workforce needs.”

“The American people are counting on us to find bipartisan solutions to our nations’ priorities. We remain ready to work with you in good faith to craft legislation that can achieve bipartisan support and 60 votes in the Senate. While there will be challenges, addressing the pressing needs of our nations’ borders and finding bipartisan solutions to our outdated immigration system are too important to ignore in the 119th Congress,” the Senators concluded.

On the letter, King was joined by Senators Mark Kelly (D-AZ), Gary Peters (D-MI), Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), Raphael Warnock (D-GA), John Hickenlooper (D-CO), Mark Warner (D-VA), Maggie Hassan (D-NH), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), Jacky Rosen (D-NV), Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), and Chris Coons (D-DE). 

Senator King has long been in support of comprehensive bipartisan immigration reform. Last year, he supported the bipartisan immigration framework led by conservative Oklahoma Republican Senator James Lankford, Independent Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema, and Connecticut Democrat Senator Chris Murphy. In 2018, Senator King co-led bipartisan negotiations with Senator Mike Rounds (R-SD) on an immigration proposal that included both a pathway to citizenship for DREAMers and more than $25 billion for the Department of Homeland Security to construct physical border barriers and technology. Also, in 2013, Senator King voted for the bipartisan 2013 agreement that represented the most significant reform of America’s immigration policy by offering millions of undocumented immigrants an earned pathway to citizenship.

The full text of the letter can be found here and below.

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 Dear Majority Leader Thune:

We write regarding the pressing border security and immigration needs facing our country. As we have shown, Democrats and Republicans can work together on real bipartisan solutions. We can solve big challenges when we work together, and there is much work to do to improve border security, protect Dreamers and farmworkers, and fix our immigration system to better reflect the needs of our country and our modern economy. These issues require bipartisan cooperation and we stand ready to work with you to develop meaningful and long-lasting solutions to these important issues that have gone unaddressed for far too long under both Democratic- and Republican-controlled government.

We understand that Senate Republicans have discussed using the budget reconciliation process to advance border security budget measures without any Democratic input. While that’s your right, in working together on a bipartisan basis, we can achieve the best outcome for the American people. There are also limitations to what can be done under budget reconciliation, and as we’ve seen time and time again, no party has all the solutions on this or any issue.

There is a lot of common ground for us to start on. We see a need for strong, commonsense, and fair immigration enforcement accompanied by the necessary resources to effectively secure our borders. That’s important for our national security and to support border states. We also see a need for a firm but fair immigration system that streamlines processes and better addresses our workforce needs.

The American people are counting on us to find bipartisan solutions to our nations’ priorities. We remain ready to work with you in good faith to craft legislation that can achieve bipartisan support and 60 votes in the Senate. While there will be challenges, addressing the pressing needs of our nations’ borders and finding bipartisan solutions to our outdated immigration system are too important to ignore in the 119th Congress.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

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