Haley urges Congress to make changes to border bill: ‘We need this fix now’  

Former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley urged Congress to amend a bipartisan border deal unveiled by Senate negotiators Sunday, urging lawmakers that “we need this fix now.” 

“They need to stay there. They need to figure this out. They need to adjust it, amend it in any way that they can, and they should not leave D.C. until they get us a border bill,” Haley told Fox News’s Neil Cavuto on Monday. “And no, we are not waiting until the general election to do this.” 

A bipartisan group of senators released their deal to tackle immigration at the U.S. southern border Sunday evening, immediately receiving blowback from top House Republicans and allies of former President Trump. Trump railed against the bill on Monday, calling it “a great gift to the Democrats, and a Death Wish for The Republican Party.” 

Prominent senators, including Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), have also raised concerns about the bill.  

Haley told Cavuto one of the aspects she liked about the bill was the changes it would make to the asylum claim process, which would increase the standard for such claims by requiring that asylum-seekers have a “reasonable possibility” of being persecuted or tortured in their country.

But Haley explained she did not like some aspects of the bill, including that the legislation would not require asylum-seekers to be in Mexico while their claims were being processed and that it would set a threshold of 5,000 daily crossings that would have to be reached before migrants without appointments could be turned away at the border.

“We have a completely open border. America’s acting like it’s Sept. 10, and we better remember what Sept. 12 felt like, ’cause it only takes one person to cross that border to create a 9/11 moment,” Haley said, claiming Trump wanted to wait until after the general election to address the border.