The big lie about letting in 5,000 migrants a day will kill Sen. Sinema’s border bill

There was never any doubt that consummate Donald Trump bootlickers like Republican Arizona Reps. Andy Biggs, Paul Gosar and Eli Crane, along with U.S. Senate candidate Kari Lake, would follow the edict of Dear Leader and oppose the bipartisan border security legislation worked out over many months by Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, Republican Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma and Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut.

Biggs has wandered so far down Trump’s toady path that he now even mimics Trump’s disdain for the late-Sen. John McCain, saying of the border bill, “Hard to believe, but this is even more terrible than the old Gang of Eight legislation,” a reference to a 2013 bipartisan immigration bill co-authored by McCain.

I’d guess that Sinema and those with whom she worked to hammer out the legislation knew that Trump would oppose it. No matter what.

Trump is basing his presidential campaign on there being a border crisis. He needs it as a campaign prop and cannot afford to have it look like Republicans and Democrats are working to solve the problem.

It doesn’t matter to him or those who support him that every day without action only makes the problem worse. In fact, they like it like that. They want that.

Kari Lake, others are spreading untruths

Even so, I don’t believe Sinema and her legislative partners quite figured on opponents lying so boldly and so often about certain aspects of their proposal. Although, this being politics, it shouldn’t have surprised them.

Like when a Trump groupie like Lake, repeating claims by numerous other critics of the bill, posted on X, formerly Twitter, “The Schumer/Sinema border deal allows 5,000 illegal immigrants into our country per DAY. That’s 5,000 illegal immigrants, too many for me. Secure the border & turn them back.”

No, it doesn’t do that.

But that false claim sure is getting repeated. A lot.

Kari Lake has a meltdown: Over Sinema's border plan

And it’s getting repeated by politicians who should know better. Politicians who DO know better.

Not because they read the bill themselves (which would be way more than we should expect of them), but because people on their staffs have read the bill and know that it isn’t true.

How can Sinema correct 5,000 lies?

The sponsors have been making the media rounds trying to correct the lies.

Sen. Lankford, for example, pointed out that the emergency authority outlined in the bill “is not designed to let 5,000 people in, it is designed to close the border and turn 5,000 people around.”

He said that he spoke to fellow Republicans about this and added, “but it’s been said wrong so many times that people immediately just go back to, ‘this lets 5,000 people in a day,’ which is just factually wrong, but if you say it enough, it just sounds true.”

Sen. Murphy posted on X: “This line of attack (the bill “accepts 5,000 illegal immigrants a day”) is just made up bad faith nonsense.”

Sinema is trying to get the message across as well, posting on X: “This provision is getting woefully — and perhaps purposefully — misconstrued. The border automatically closes when migrant ENCOUNTERS reach 5,000. This does not mean that 5,000 migrants are permitted to enter the country every day.”

In the end, the thing that will kill Sinema’s good faith effort to bolster border security will not be caused by a mythical 5,000 migrants a day.

But by a very real 5,000 lies, or more, per day.

Reach Montini at ed.montini@arizonarepublic.com.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Border bill won't allow 5,000 migrants a day. But the lie will kill it