As immigrant rights groups pressure Democrats to refuse to offer President Donald Trump any money for his anti-immigrant agenda, House Democratic leaders are reportedly preparing to release a plan on Thursday that would provide billions of dollars in funding for more Border Patrol agents, new drones, and other so-called “border security improvements” if Trump agrees to reopen the government first.
While the plan would not include any funding for Trump’s physical wall, the Democratic proposal—which has yet to be finalized—is expected to offer billions of dollars for border surveillance technology that House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) called a “smart wall.”
“If you look at all the things that we are proposing, more judges, more border patrol, additional technology, these are the kinds of things that we are going to be putting forth,” Clyburn told reporters on Wednesday. “And I think that they can be done using the figure that the president has put on the table, if his $5.7 billion is about border security, then we see ourselves fulfilling that request only doing it with what I like to call using a ‘smart wall.’”
“Walls are primitive—what we need to do is have border security,” Clyburn added. “Use technology, use scanners, use x-ray equipment.”
Progressives were quick to object to the Democrats’ proposal.
“Why are they so terrible at this?” asked Vox‘s Dave Roberts.
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I’m embarrassed. 🤦🏾♂️https://t.co/2vyev7ixGq
— Waleed Shahid (@_waleedshahid) January 23, 2019
No, we wouldn’t. https://t.co/m5Z4kGBHvv
— Justice Democrats (@justicedems) January 23, 2019
As Common Dreams reported earlier this month, privacy advocates have strongly objected to any such “smart wall”—which House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) recently called a “technological wall”—on the grounds that it would seriously endanger…