Oklahoma's Inhofe Announces Plan For Funding U.S.-Mexico Border Wall

<p>Senator Jim Inhofe says he's got a plan to pay for a border wall by eliminating some benefits now going to illegal immigrants. </p>

Thursday, November 1st 2018, 1:08 pm

By: Emory Bryan

Oklahoma's Inhofe Announces Plan For Funding U.S.-Mexico Border Wall

President Trump spoke Thursday about his plans to increase security on the southern border by changing policies on asylum and creating new tent cities to house migrants. Oklahoma Senator Jim Inhofe introduced a new plan to pay for the border wall by saving tax dollars now supporting illegal immigration.

Senator Inhofe is not taking on the birthright citizenship issue but wants to speed up construction on a border wall, using money he says is now spent on immigrants.

“My major function here is to simply pay for a wall,” said Inhofe.

Senator Inhofe said he supports sending more troops to the border and changing policies to discourage migrants making false claims for asylum.

"The first thing we want to do is change that so that to apply for asylum they have to go to a U.S. consulate or embassy," said Inhofe.

Inhofe spoke at a manufacturing plant in Tulsa where he said even though the economy is as strong as ever, it’s not strong enough to continue absorbing the numbers of people crossing the Mexican border.

“A lot of people say we should be doing that, we should be feeding the whole world and frankly we can't afford that, so I don't agree with that,” said Inhofe.

Inhofe is on the same page with the President who spoke Thursday about speeding up construction. Inhofe said his plan is the first to fully identify the money to build the 1,200 miles of border wall over 10 years.

His plan is to cut off tax credits that flow to illegal immigrant parents because they have children who are citizens. He also wants states to verify citizenship before they distribute any benefits.

Inhofe believes the savings, over a decade, would easily pay for the $25 billion wall.

“It's money that's otherwise going to be spent if we don't do it,” said Inhofe.

Inhofe's legislation was just introduced Thursday and they are the same asylum policy changes that President Trump said he will support.