Senator James Lankford stands firm on border security bill as he counters Republican criticism on 'Fox & Friends'

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: Oklahoma Sen James Lankford responded to the critics of the bipartisan border security bill as he appeared with co-host Brian Kilmeade on the February 5 episode of 'Fox & Friends.'

The lead GOP negotiator implored critics to go through the bill, which includes a $118 billion spending package. According to Lankford, passing the bill will create a "faster and stronger system" of deportation and will "flip the script" on Biden's immigration policy.

However, many Republicans were not satisfied with the legislation and felt that it did not do enough to curb illegal immigration.

James Lankford rebukes fellow Republicans for refusing to act

The Senator questioned, "Are we, as Republicans, going to have press conferences and complain the border is bad and then intentionally leave it open after the worst month in American history in December?"

"Now we've got to actually determine, are we going to just complain about things or are we going to actually address and change as many things as we can?"

"If we have the shot - and it's amazing to me, if I go back two months ago and say we had the shot under a Democrat president to dramatically increase detention beds, deportation flights, lock down the border, to be able to change the asylum laws, to be able to accelerate the process, no one would have believed it," he continued.

"And now no one actually wants to be able to fix it, says, 'I don't want to even debate it. I don't want to discuss it.' We have to decide, as Republicans, what are we going to actually do about the border and leave it open or actually leave it closed?"

The critically misunderstood section of the bill

The bipartisan bill proposes an overhaul to the asylum system with tougher and quicker enforcement measures.

If an average of 5000 migrants daily cross the border illegally for a period of 5 days, an expulsion authority would automatically kick in so that migrants are sent back to Mexico without an opportunity to make an asylum claim.

Presidential administrations would have the option of using the expulsion authority if the number crosses 4000.

"This authority is a 5,000 authority to say if you get to 5,000, which we've been there every single day except for seven in the last four months, that it completely closes the border down. It deports everyone," explained Lankford.

"It changes the paradigm from right now – what the Biden administration is doing is catching and releasing everyone – to actually catching and deporting everyone. It literally flips the script on it," he added.