If Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham is looking for strategies on moving his immigration overhaul legislation, acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan presented one possible path: Graham’s old work with the “gang of eight” that produced a bill the Senate passed in 2013 with a veto-proof majority.

At a hearing Tuesday before Graham’s panel, McAleenan said the current border situation now wouldn’t be as bad if the bipartisan gang of eight compromise of 2013 — which passed the Democratic Senate 68-32 but was never taken up by the Republican House — had become law.

“We would have a very different situation” had that bill passed, McAleenan said. “We would have 20,000 additional border patrol agents, we would have technology comprehensively deployed … we would be a lot more secure on the border.”

Tuesday’s hearing was ostensibly to discuss Graham’s immigration bill that seeks to change asylum law to help stem the flow of migrants from Central America to the U.S.-Mexico border.

Instead, it evolved into another update on the border crisis, along with statements from both Republicans and Democrats saying they were willing to work together on short-term funding to help with the border emergency, and possibly on a larger immigration compromise reminiscent of the 2013 attempt.