Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-GA) effort to make the federal government more transparent about the nationalities of illegal immigrants arrested at the border has advanced in the House.
The Special Interest Alien Reporting Act was passed by the House Homeland Security Committee in a 15-12 vote on Wednesday.
The bill would require the Department of Homeland Security to release statistics regularly about the number of illegal immigrants caught at the border if they are from certain “special interest” countries that pose national security threats to the United States, as well as the area of the border where they were apprehended.
The DHS defines a “special interest alien” as a “non-U.S. person who, based on an analysis of travel patterns, potentially poses a national security risk to the United States or its interests.”
“The administration tried to convince the public that there was no threat at the border. They were complicit in covering up the invasion at our border,” Greene said during the committee markup of the bill.
“They allowed over 12 million illegals from over 170 countries and territories to break our laws,” Greene continued. “Under the Biden-Harris administration, there were at least 1.7 million Special Interest Aliens from 26 countries encountered at our border.”
Greene’s plea was met with pushback from Democrats who viewed the legislation as divulging sensitive information to the public, including criminals and cartels who could use it to their benefit.
Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), the top Democrat on the committee, said the Trump administration ought to consider how information could be safely published without putting national security at risk in the way he claimed Greene’s bill would.
“Democrats went to San Diego. We heard from the professionals last weekend about many of these issues, and one of the things we did learn is their protocols need to be kept a secret in order to be effective,” Thompson said. “If we’re going to, going to publish these special interest aliens, then that tells [the cartels] how they need to move people from other countries to here.”
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Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY), who also voted against the bill, insisted that “this kind of information only helps the enemy — it does not stop them.”
The GOP-controlled committee voted to pass the bill to the House floor. It would be up to House leadership to decide when to bring it up for a full vote.
