New Senate bipartisan border bill introduced in wake of Trump election victory

FIRST ON FOX: Sens. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., and Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., connected Thursday introduced a bipartisan measure to intensify national prosecution of quality smugglers astatine the U.S.-Mexico border. 

The proposed legislation, dubbed the Border Smuggling Crackdown Act, aims to heighten penalties for traffickers by updating national sentencing guidelines to amended bespeak the nonstop fig of individuals smuggled.

"Criminals and quality traffickers who exploit and smuggle quality beings crossed our Southern Border indispensable wage a dense price. They endanger our nationalist information and exploit victims of trafficking," Ossoff said successful a statement. 

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A radical claiming to beryllium from India sits successful the shadiness of the borderline partition arsenic they hold to beryllium picked up by Border Patrol aft crossing done the borderline obstruction successful the Tucson Sector of the U.S.-Mexico borderline adjacent Lukeville, Arizona, connected Aug. 29, 2023. (AP Photo/Matt York, File)

In caller years, federal authorities person reported an uptick successful the kidnapping and extortion of migrants successful U.S. borderline cities, arsenic quality smuggling operations progressively displacement from radical to transnational transgression networks. 

Ossoff's bureau said that existent national guidelines bash not adequately relationship for the precise fig of persons smuggled, alternatively allotting sentencing enhancements based connected wide ranges of persons smuggled.

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Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn. (Shannon Finney/Getty Images for RIAA)

Additionally, the measure raises the sentencing levels for cases wherever victims acquisition bodily harm oregon death, with an summation successful punishment increments based connected the severity of injuries sustained. Bodily wounded incurs a two-level summation per person, superior bodily wounded adds 4 levels, life-threatening oregon imperishable wounded adds six levels, and each decease leads to a 10-level increase, according to the measure text.

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Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)

"Cartels astatine our confederate borderline are trafficking and exploiting guiltless men, women, and children each day," Blackburn said successful a statement. "Our measure would modernize national sentencing instrumentality to amended clasp these quality smugglers to relationship and guarantee that sentencing for these crimes reflects each azygous idiosyncratic these criminals injure oregon murder."

The measure comes arsenic President-elect Trump has promised to ace down connected amerciable migration and the situation astatine the confederate borderline portion making historical gains among Democratic districts. 

Democrats person struggled this predetermination cycle, with Vice President Kamala Harris arsenic their statesmanlike nominee, to code amerciable immigration. 

This year, the Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector General sent a study to Congress uncovering that, implicit the past 5 years, much than 32,000 unaccompanied amerciable alien children did not amusement for migration tribunal hearings, and that Immigration and Customs Enforcement could not relationship for the determination of each of those who did not appear. 

Fox News Digital's Adam Shaw contributed to this report.