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WASHINGTON Republicans in Congress are suddenly hunting around for $12 billion to $15 billion to pay for President Donald Trumps border wall, but he would have had most of the money already if House Republicans hadnt blocked a 2013 bill that would have spent even more.

The measure was the Senates comprehensive immigration reform bill that passed on a bipartisan vote of 68 to 32. It included $46.3 billion for border security, including $8 billion for 700 miles of fence, $4.5 billion for surveillance technology and implementation, and the possibility of $2 billion more if the initial flood of cash was not enough.

It would have been the largest border splurge in history, with an additional 19,200 agents getting hired for the southern border to go along with all the walls and technology.

If it had been passed by the House, Trumps vision would have been well on its way to being realized under President Barack Obama. But then-House Speaker John Boehner refused to bring that bill up for a vote, saying that instead House committees would pursue a piecemeal approach. They never produced anything equivalent.

The reason Democrats in the Senate agreed to the tough enforcement provisions, which were added late in the legislative process, was because once those provisions were met, they would trigger reform measures aimed at fixing the broken immigration system, and create a way to deal with the 11 million undocumented immigrants already in the United States.

Those amendments were a tough pill to swallow, and while I would not usually agree to a lot of what was in those provisions, they reflected a sincere give-and-take that put us over the finish line, said Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), who was a member of the bipartisan Gang of Eight that put the bill together.

Menendez sees little give and a lot of take in the new approach to building a wall that has been emerging from the White House and GOP leaders in recent days, with Trump signing an executive order to build the wall.

It is the height of hypocrisy to now see the same House Republicans that killed the most expansive and bipartisan border protection package in decades, use alt-facts to applaud President Trump for asking American taxpayers to fund his reckless border militarization plans especially when questions about securing the border would have been long addressed if not for their own obstruction, Menendez said.

His statement likely signals a major problem for Trump and Republican leaders. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) will be able to pass a bill in the House that funds Trumps desires. But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) will need to get 60 votes in the Senate, meaning he needs to sway at least eight Democrats to his side.

A Democratic leadership aide said that was unlikely, and indeed, pointed to the 2013 bill for the sorts of measures Democrats would need to have included before they would fund Trumps vision.

The aide also noted that building a wall does nothing to curb immigrants who fly to the United States legally then stay, and who represent 40 percent of the undocumented population. That also was addressed in the bill that House Republicans refused to even debate.

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Trump Would Have The Money For His Wall Now If House Republicans Hadn't Blocked It In 2013 - Huffington Post

This sensible change in focus, for as long as it might endure, provides an opportunity to contemplate what else may be possible regarding immigration policy during the next four years.

But it doesn't have to be this way.

Fortunately for Republicans and Democrats, and for the country, there is a simpler way for this administration to make good on all of its promises. The answer is to pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill that includes bipartisan compromises to accomplish the thrust of each of Trump's enforcement promises, but also provides that once the President (or his successor) declares that these things have been accomplished, lawful permanent residency will be provided for all of the undocumented, law-abiding individuals currently living in the United States.

Second, no immigration bill will pass unless it is comprehensive. Contrary to popular belief, Democrats have now become accustomed to explaining that, in their view, enforcement-only approaches will unnecessarily cost taxpayers billions of dollars, cause needless harm and separation to families who have been here for decades and lead to massive disruptions in the economy and further exploitation of illegal workers. No amount of pressure on red-state Democrats will likely change this calculus.

Democrats should support compromise legislation that prevents the deportation of undocumented individuals who are already living here and have clean criminal records, but does not confer actual lawful immigration status to anyone until after all of the bill's enforcement metrics have been achieved. Once the enforcement metrics have been met, the individuals protected by the bill could earn the right to receive permanent residency in the United States.

It is in Democrats' interest to support this legislation because it will immediately alleviate the fear and uncertainty that is affecting the immigrant community while ensuring that legitimate concerns about preventing future waves of illegal immigration are finally addressed to the satisfaction of the very voters Democrats are trying to win back.

The choice is clear: Keep fighting the same battles of the past, or work together to achieve everyone's stated goals. Hopefully, collaboration will prevail over combat.

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With Obama gone, it's time for comprehensive immigration reform - CNN International

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The extensive reforms of rules against illegal immigration were unpacked Wednesday afternoon by alarmed immigration lawyers, including Greg Siskind and David Leopold, a former president of theAmerican Immigration Lawyers Association. The associations members help bring roughly one million legal immigrants and roughly one million temporary contract workers into the United States each year.

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Heres a list of very important measures hidden in the details. For example, immigration officers are being allowed the day-to-day ability to enforce the law as they see fit. Under Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush, the officers were merely robots under the slow and long-distance control of D.C-based civil rights lawyers, whose first priorities were the political interests of their immigration-boosting political bosses.

A Bloomberg columnist underlined the importance of the new freedom for officers.

Franke-RutaGarance is the editor-in-chief of Yahoo.coms politics news service. She highlighted a report showing that the broader rules help immigration officers to send illegals home after committing common crimes, such as identity theft. Thats very different from Obamas policies, which limited deportations to illegals who committed felonies or major violent crimes.

Siskind Tweeted his analysis of Trumps orders, section by section.

This Tweet those that by declaring illegal immigrants to be national security threats, Trump offers immigration agencies more legal pathways to quickly return the migrants to their homelands, sometime bypassing civil lawsuits.

Thats an important indication of support for a fence, versus a wall. Border officers say a fence is better than a wall, because it allows them to spot approaching problems through the fence. Also, Trumps decision to setoperational control at zero means that zero illegal crosses is the desired and very ambitious measure of success.

Okay, by saying Congress will fund construction and staffing of the barrier, Trump commits himself to finding other Mexican-related funds to offset Congress checks. Those funds could include taxes on money sent to Mexico by illegal immigrants, or maybe even savings from welfare funds no longer being spent on illegal migrants.

This detention requirement is huge because it means the end of President Barack Obamas post-2014 catch and release policy. The Obama policy has forced officers to release many migrants once they cross the border, allowing the migrants to join their extended families throughout the United States. In contrast, Trumps plan will deter migrants, who will know that if they are caught, they must spend days or months in U.S. detention facilities before being sent home to face unpaid and angry coyotes.

Thats also big, because it means that Trump will return migrants home until lawyers and perhaps courts decide if they can win asylum in the United States. That initial return will also deter migration because migrants will know they cant get a job in the United States while their legal claims are processed over months or years.

Heres where Trumps deputies are building more leverage against Mexico. By calculating where the aid money is going, theyll be able to nudge the Mexican government towards wall-related payments or face the additional threat of losing aid funds.

This is important too, because it means the Justice Department can fund state and local cops to pick up illegal immigrants for repatriation by the Department of Homeland Security. This rule means that illegals living far from the border can now expect repatriation orders when theyre arrested for minors crimes, such as drunk-driving, fights, thefts, and other offenses that have been ignored by deputies working for Obama and Bush.

This parole rule shuts an mini-amnesty backdoor created by Obamas deputies. Under Obama, many illegals were given permission to return to the United States under parole prior to taking a quick trip home. This early permission meant that the illegals including many students enrolled in American colleges could re-enter the United States legally and then start applying for various forms of residency and amnesty.

This plain language rule shuts down Obamas post-2011 program for allowing Central American migrants into the United States. So far, at least 350,000 unskilled Central American migrants have been allowed to apply by asylum by claiming they have a credible fear of violence if they return home.

This hiring rule means that Trumps top deputies will use of the White Houses Office of Personnel Management to pick the people tasked with enforcing the new policy. This top-level direction can help bypass bureaucratic opposition within various agencies.

Officials have already announced the hiring of a D.C.-based pro-American lobbyist to help run the Customs and Border Protection agency. Julie Kirchner, the former executive director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), has been named chief of staff at U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the largest federal law enforcement agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS), said a Jan. 23 statement from the pro-immigration Southern Poverty Law Center.

The new rules also create a new office to help spotlight the suffering of Americans attacked by illegal immigrants. That p.r. office will provide a steady supply of news and drama to focus public attention on crimes by illegal immigrants and it will also help defeat claims by advocates of immigration that Trump is breaking up families of illegal immigrants.

Trump presented the p.r. strategy at his Wednesday speech where he talked up his new rules. He told his cheering audience at the Department of Homeland Security that:

For years the media has largely ignored the stories of Americans and lawful residents victimized by open borders. To all of those hurting out there, I repeat to you these words. We hear you, we see you and you will never, ever be ignored again.

As I travel the country, I had the chance to get to know mothers who have lost their children to violence spilling over the border. I want to thank the Remembrance Project such incredible people for giving these families a voice. They are called Angel Moms for good reason because they are a voice to protect all of Americas children. Their children have not died in vain, believe me.

Pundits talk about how enforcing immigration laws can separate illegal immigrant families, but the families they dont talk about are the families of Americans. Forever separated from the people they love, they dont talk about that ever. As your president, I have no higher duty than to protect the lives of the American people.

Overall, Siskind, Leopold and other advocates of government-imposed diversity say Trumps popular reforms are a disaster for their political goals.

However, Trump has yet to announce many of the other labor and immigration reforms he promised during the election.

Top of the list is a new law from Congress requiring companies to check that possible hires are allowed to work in the United States.

The reformers also want Trump to deploy a visitor-tracking system so that officials know when legal visitors, such as tourists or temporary workers, have left the country. The system would help reduce the number of overstay illegal workers. Congress has repeatedly authorized the deployment of the tracking system since the 9/11 atrocity, but has not provided the needed funds. In 2015 roughly 500,000 foreign visitors overstayed their visas, according to a government report.

The reformers also want Trump to reverse Obama regulations which sharply increased the inflow of foreign while-collar professionals who compete for professional jobs sought by young American graduates.

Trump is coming under criticism from pro-American immigration reformers for not immediately stopping the renewal of two-year work permits given to roughly 750,000 illegal immigrants by Obamas 2012 quasi-amnesty.

Throughout his term, Obama increased the inflow of legal immigrants so much that his agencies broughtone migrant into the United States for every two birthsduring the first half of 2016, according to the Center for Immigration Studies.

For much of his tenure, Obamas agencies annually imported one million new legal immigrants plus one million foreign contract workers, even as 4 million young Americans annually entered the job market. By a lopsided margin, most Americans believe companies should hire Americans before hiring additional immigrants.

Trumps pro-American policies are mostly opposed by business groups and by many GOP leaders, especially House Speaker Paul Ryan. The GOPs leadership tend to favor a business-friendly high-immigration, low-wage economic strategy. For example, Ryan has repeatedly argued that business needs an extra supply of foreign blue-collar workers and white-collar professionals above the natural supply of four million Americans who join the labor force each year, and he argues that foreign workers are needed to prevent any wage increases for American workers.

The current inflow ofcheap foreign workers cuts Americans salaries and effectively transfers roughly $500 billion a year from pay packets into investors profits, according to calculations by Professor George Borjas, a Harvard researcher.

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Donald Trump's 'Comprehensive Immigration Reform' is Much Broader Than Expected - Breitbart News

The Border Patrol chief has been removed from office, a day after President Trump signed an executive order to build a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border and hire 5,000 more agents, sources confirmed to Fox News Thursday.

The Associated Press first reported Thursday that Mark Morgan told senior Border Patrol agents that he was asked to leave, and said he had chosen to resign rather than fight the removal request.

Morgan was named to the post in June and took office in October. His hiring had caused concern among the rank-and-file as he was not a former agent himself.

Sources told Fox News that the latest move was to show that Customs and Border Protection is going in a new, and more aggressive, direction.

Morgans last day will be Jan. 31 and sources said a new chief has already been identified. Sources say he is more in line with the Trump administration on border issues.

In a statement, Kevin McAleenan, the Customs andBorderProtection's acting commissioner, praised Morgan for "his unwavering dedication to ourbordersecurity mission" and "lifelong career in service to the nation."

The White House released a statement saying that the post is a political appointment and therefore "all officers understand the President may choose to replace them at any time."

"No officer accepts a political appointment with the expectation that it is unlimited," the statement said.

Morgan had clashed frequently with the Border Patrol union, which backed Trump and criticized Morgan frequently. The union was infuriated when Morgan told a Senate hearing in December that he supported a comprehensive immigration overhaul assumed to include a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.

Morgan later clarified his statement sying he did not support blanket amnesty and encouraged union members to listen to his testimony.

Agency officials told The Associated Press that Morgan appeared to embrace the job. Less than a week ago, the first message on his new Twitter account read, "Chief Morgan here -- excited to use this account to share the latest news and events of the #BorderPatrol with followers."

Fox News Adam Housley and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Border Patrol chief, who once backed immigration reform, removed from office - Fox News

Some fear Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival protection may be taken away.

(WJBK) - For Jasmine Lomeli, its an uncertain future and the anxiety grows with each executive order on immigration signed by President Donald trump.

"As a parent, as a daughter, we don't know. We don't know what is going to be our future," she said.

This mother of three knows no other home other than Detroit.

She was brought here from Mexico by undocumented parents as a child.

"I'm really proud of my parents," she said.

Lomeli's known this fear most of her life however, and applied for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival, or DACA, protection in 2015. That protects children of illegal immigrants from deportation. She and others at a Michigan United Rally on Thursday are concerned Trump may do away with that protection as part of sweeping immigration reform.

"With DACA, we feel safe and now are afraid. We don't know what is going to happen," Lomeli said.

She feels Detroit is a safe place for her family for now, but questions how long that safety will last if DACA protection is undone -- a fear that would be lessened if she lived in a sanctuary city. The mayor has made clear Detroit isn't a sanctuary city but the problem according to organizers here is the term sanctuary city isnt clearly defined, leaving a lot of room for interpretation and fear.

City council woman Raquel Castaneda-Lopez attempted to clarify where the city stands in that regard.

"We don't actively go out and seek and search for immigrants and then report that back to border patrol, so we are a safe haven in that we prevent racial profiling. We are not a sanctuary city in terms of how Trumps defines it as denying access to federal agents."

This group of civil right activists say despite the speed at which this reform seems to be happening there is no reason to give up the fight.

"Courage means to act even if you are afraid to organize and show up to these meetings to become a united front," said Sergio Martinez, a DACA recipient.

So far Trump has not signed any executive orders pertaining to DACA and this group wants to keep it that way.

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DACA recipients face uncertainty after Trump's immigration reform - Fox 2 Detroit