by Arjun Singh
Montana has one of the longest stretches of the U.S.-Canadian border of any state. However, it is the other border – almost 1,500 km away – that is becoming a flashpoint in the ongoing race for the US Senate.
Montana’s U.S. Senate seat, currently held by Democratic Sen. Jon Tester, will be up for re-election this year, with Tester running against Republican candidate Tim Sheehy, a former Navy SEAL and aerial firefighter. Sheehy has consistently attacked Tester on issues of immigration and border security – in an attempt to portray him as having helped improve President Joe Biden’s record on illegal immigration from Mexico – forcing Tester to defend his record.
“What’s happening at the southern border is an absolute crisis, and it’s getting worse every day under Biden and career politicians like Jon Tester, who speak harshly about border security but fail to deliver.” – writes Sheehy in his article campaign website. “The result of an open southern border is an increase in crime and the flow of drugs into our country and Montana communities.”
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According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, more than 7.9 million foreign nationals have illegally crossed the U.S.-Mexico border since the Biden administration took office. This number only includes people detained by law enforcement, not those who managed to get between ports of entry. Many of these foreigners may remain in the country after applying for asylum, which can take years to be processed.
“Jon Tester worked with Joe Biden to assist in the invasion taking place on our southern border,” Sheehy wrote in a press release attacking Tester for voting to dismiss impeachment charges against Biden Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas. Sheehy promised to support building a physical wall along the southern border – a longtime policy goal of former President Donald Trump, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee – as well as an end to federal relocation flights to distribute migrants across the country.
Sheehy’s focus on the border reflects a broader strategy for GOP Senate candidates in battleground states across the country who he emphasized problem. In April, the Senate Republican Conference campaign arm announced it would spend $15 million this election to attack Tester on immigration, According to Policy.
Tester, for his part, emphasized the contrast between himself and Biden on the issue.
“I stood up to Biden to demand action to secure our border and way of life in Montana,” Tester wrote on June 9 on Twitter, now known as X. Tester also touted his support for the introduced bipartisan border security bill in the Senate in February and again in May, which Republicans voted against.
“We had one of the toughest border bills we’ve ever had in the Senate, and Republicans killed it because they wanted to give my opponent a campaign issue,” Tester wrote on Twitter. Addressing his opponent directly, he wrote: “Tim – you didn’t even read the damn bill before you said you opposed it!”
However, critics of the Senate bill supported by Tester claim that it is develop and codify the discretionary authority of Biden Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas when it comes to border issues. Using this discretionary power, Mayorkas unilaterally changed laws established by Congress, including creating more than a dozen parole programs that House Republicans have deemed illegal and cited questioned it in February.
This year, Tester joined Republicans in Congress to support conservative immigration legislation – an unusual move for a Democrat senator. Chief among them is the Laken Riley Act, a bill named after a Georgia graduate student allegedly killed by a foreigner in the country illegally, which passed the House in March and which Tester co-sponsored in the Senate.
Montana is considered a heavily conservative state, with Cook’s Partisan Voting Index (PVI) being R+11, indicating the leanness of the Republican Party. However, Tester won re-election to his seat three times as a Democrat and is currently the only Democrat holding statewide office.
Immigration is a major issue in federal campaigns this year as Democrats seek to blunt Republicans’ accusations that they are intentionally allowing illegal immigration, and on June 4, Biden signed an executive order that bars people crossing the border illegally from receiving asylum. But on June 18, he also issued an executive order that would allow some undocumented immigrants who married U.S. citizens to gain legal status and, eventually, U.S. citizenship — a move Republicans derided as “amnesty.”
Not to be outdone, Trump announced last week that he would grant constant residency to any international student who graduates from a U.S. college or university. According to the State Department, there are now more than a million international students in the country, and Trump’s proposal would represent the largest expansion of legal immigration since the Reagan administration, when Congress last passed a comprehensive immigration reform bill.
Tester and Sheehy did not immediately respond to requests for comment on whether they support the latest actions by Biden and Trump, respectively.
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Arjun Singh is a contributor Central Square.
Photo “Jon Tester” by Jon Tester. Photo “Tim Sheehey” by Tim Sheehey.
