Exclusive: Democrat Mark Kelly Wants a Border Deal, Even if it Means Backing GOP House

Eager for a solution to the ongoing migration crisis at the southwest border, Arizona's Democratic Senator Mark Kelly said he's prepared to support legislation that may come out of the Republican-controlled House, even if it's passed on a party-line vote.

A member of his party's moderate wing, Kelly has been critical of the Biden administration's handling of the situation, and has broken with members of his party on certain border-related issues. A prominent example occurred last May, when he spoke in favor of keeping the Title 42 public health order in place, which restricts migrants from seeking asylum.

Today, border enforcement legislation remains a controversial issue in the GOP-controlled House, as moderate Republicans have sparred with their conservative wing over potential legislation and the extent to which it will address immigration. In the Senate, lawmakers like Kelly and his Independent Arizona colleague, Senator Kyrsten Sinema, remain in conversation with Republicans over what a bipartisan border solution could look like.

Newsweek asked Kelly if he would support a party-line GOP immigration bill

"I don't care about that—It depends on what's in it," Kelly said. "What I would like to see from the House is something that addresses border security from the standpoint of, 'What does the Border Patrol need.'"

The needs of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) stand central to Kelly's focus as he moves forward in working with his colleagues to draft a potential package. In an exclusive interview with Newsweek, Kelly spoke about his work navigating the politics of the border issue as he seeks to pull progressive Democrats and Republicans together on an agreement.

For Kelly, who said his background is rooted in "solving problems" as a former engineer and Navy test pilot before becoming a NASA astronaut, solving the border issue will require setting politics aside.

"My approach is trying to take the partisanship out of this and just trying to solve problems," he told Newsweek. "I want [the Border Patrol] to be listened to, and not always dictated to."

By crafting a solution around the needs of the Border Patrol, Kelly believes lawmakers can better navigate the politics of the issue. He notes that while the Right may want a "2,000-mile continuous border wall," that is not the stance of CBP. Similarly, he said some on the Left think "we don't think we need much in the way of barriers at all," but that mentality again does not reflect the stated position of border enforcement authorities.

In a March 29 testimony before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, who oversees CBP, addressed President Joe Biden's CBP budget, highlighting the call for funding for an additional 350 agents and 460 processing coordinators, as well as an additional half-billion dollar investment in border security technology.

While the Department can be expected to receive funding at similar levels to what it has requested in the past, obtaining significant additional funds will require an act of Congress. As Mayorkas has expressed in prior Congressional testimonies, "the laws we enforce have not been updated for decades." The Secretary contends that these outdated laws have played a role in stretching the resources of the agency and resulted in a backlog of more than 1.7 million immigration cases.

The Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan research group, writes that this backlog incentivizes people to illegally enter the United States, as they can expect that "resolution of their case may be years off" from the time of their U.S. entry. The institute said this phenomenon may lead some people who would not qualify for asylum to seek it regardless, knowing their court date will be delayed and they may get to spend years in the U.S. before their case is heard.

The interconnectedness of these two issues has resulted in some Democrats stating they would not support legislation bolstering border security without immigration reform. In turn, some Republicans have taken a hardline stance against passing any immigration reforms while the border remains in its current state. That puts members like Kelly who are seeking a deal into a tough bind.

"This starts to get really complicated when you start to work out the details, and not just with the Republicans, with the Democrats as well," Kelly told Newsweek. "It's an incredibly frustrating issue, because I think on one level there's a lot of agreement, even on what some folks think are significant reforms to our immigration system."

However, Kelly has an idea that may appeal to those conservatives who would be willing to accept immigration reform if it made the country more competitive economically.

"We've got the lowest unemployment rate since Neil Armstrong walked on the moon," Kelly said. "Every employer I go to see is dying for more workers, every single one of them—100 percent—say they wish they had the opportunity to hire more people. So those are the areas where I think we can get a lot of compromise."

In a 2013 immigration and border security deal that passed the Senate but died in the House, the U.S. would have introduced new visas for low-skilled temporary workers and would have shifted the immigration policies away from a family-ties system to an open one focused on labor skills.

Kelly speculates that "every member of the House, when they're meeting with CEOs" hear that "we cannot find a workforce, we need to grow our company," a phenomenon that he said thwarts America's ability to grow its economy.

As Kelly moves forward on the issue, he said he understands that the border situation affects many states, as drugs like fentanyl are smuggled across it into the country. But he noted the most direct impact is on the border states—his home state of Arizona, along with California, New Mexico and Texas. To solve these issues, he said that members of Congress must be open to making concessions.

"I've seen too many times in the United States Senate that people want their thing exactly the way they want it," Kelly said. "but good compromise is when everybody is sort of unhappy—so, I am always open to compromise on this issue."