CV NEWS FEED // Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-KY, is reportedly recommending Republicans block the chamber’s controversial border bill after numerous Republicans in both the House and Senate vowed to kill it.
“McConnell cited the overwhelming number of Senate Republicans planning to vote against the measure either on substance or because they wanted more time, according to Punchbowl News,” Breitbart reported Monday evening. “The longtime Republican leader has spoken in favor of the deal and did not express any personal hesitations about the legislation to his colleagues.”
“McConnell said the political mood in the country has changed since negotiations began months ago,” Breitbart also reported, citing Punchbowl. “At that time, McConnell and Democrat leaders agreed to pair foreign aid to Ukraine, of which McConnell is the Senate’s greatest champion, with a border compromise.”
A chorus of conservative lawmakers slammed the new bipartisan immigration bill, which was released Sunday evening.
The $118-billion deal was reached after negotiations between Sens. James Lankford, R-OK, Chris Murphy, D-CT, and Kyrsten Sinema, I-AZ.
“There is a crisis at our border, and our bipartisan border security package fixes it,” Sinema stated via a press release announcing the agreement.
“Now, senators must make a decision,” she said. “[P]ass our package and solve the crisis or accept the status quo, do nothing, and keep playing politics while our system breaks and our communities continue to suffer.”
Sinema’s office called the bill “the strongest border security package in decades.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, agreed: “The deal creates a real opportunity for Congress to address our borders and make progress to a more efficient and well-resourced system.”
Schumer said Sunday, “I have never worked more closely with [Senate Minority] Leader McConnell [R-KY] on any piece of legislation as we did on this.”
Per National Public Radio (NPR), the bill allocates “[j]ust over $20 billion for border provisions … includ[ing] $650 million for the border wall, approximately $4 billion to hire new asylum officers and additional funds to provide counsel for unaccompanied children.”
By contrast, it earmarks over $60 billion toward wartime “security aid” in Ukraine – three times the funding it allocates to securing the U.S. border.
“I’ve seen enough,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-LA, wrote on X Sunday night. “This bill is even worse than we expected, and won’t come close to ending the border catastrophe the President has created.”
“If this bill reaches the House, it will be dead on arrival,” he emphasized.
In his post, Johnson also pointed out the fact that Murphy – one of the bill’s primary negotiators – openly said of what the bill would do: “the border never closes.”
Murphy had written in an X post announcing the legislation hours earlier: “The border never closes, but claims must be processed at the ports.”
“This allows for a more a more [sic] orderly, humane asylum processing system,” the Connecticut Democrat added.
Johnson wrote in a Monday statement issued alongside House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-LA, Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-MN, and Republican Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik, R-NY: “House Republicans oppose the Senate immigration bill because it fails in every policy area needed to secure our border and would actually incentivize more illegal immigration.”
“Among its many flaws, the bill expands work authorizations for illegal aliens while failing to include critical asylum reforms,” continued the Republican House leadership team:
Even worse, its language allowing illegals to be “released from physical custody” would effectively endorse the Biden ‘catch and release’ policy.
The so-called “shutdown” authority in the bill is anything but, riddled with loopholes that grant far too much discretionary authority to Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas – who has proven he will exploit every measure possible, in defiance of the law, to keep the border open.
The House Republican leaders also pointed out that the bill “fails to adequately stop the President’s abuse of parole authority and provides for taxpayer funds to fly and house illegal immigrants in hotels through the FEMA Shelter and Services Program.”
“America’s sovereignty is at stake,” they stressed, calling the Biden administration’s border crisis a “catastrophe.”
“Any consideration of this Senate bill in its current form is a waste of time,” the four Republicans concluded.
“It is DEAD on arrival in the House,” Johnson and his colleagues reiterated.
However, before the bill can even head to the House, it has to first pass the Senate, where the filibuster is still in play.
A wide array of Republican senators have already denounced the package.
“‘The border never closes’ is a good summary of this bill, and of Joe Biden’s policy,” posted Sen. J.D. Vance, R-OH. “I can understand why Chris Murphy supports it. I cannot imagine why any Republican supports this atrocious proposal.”
Sen. Mike Lee, R-UT, wrote on X: “Senate GOP leadership screwed this up—and screwed us.”
“Even while refusing to let us see the bill they claimed to be negotiating on our behalf—for MONTHS—they were never in doubt, insisting we’d be dumb and even unpatriotic NOT to support it,” Lee went on.
He called the agreement a “disqualifying betrayal.”
Shortly thereafter, Lee posted a poll to X asking the following question:
If you had a lawyer, agent, or employee who (while negotiating on your behalf) botched a deal as badly as Senate GOP leadership botched this border / supplemental aid package, would you immediately fire that person?
As of 1:00 pm ET on Monday, over 98% of the poll’s 11,000 respondents selected “yes” as their answer.
Observers interpreted Lee’s question as criticism of McConnell and other members of the Senate’s Republican leadership.
“The Democrats are celebrating,” noted Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-MO. “Big wins for the Open Borders crowd. Need 41 Senators to STAND FIRM to prevent this bill from being jammed through.”
Forty-one is the minimum number of senators required in order to prevent the passage of a bill via the filibuster. Conversely, the support of 60 senators is required to break a filibuster.
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-AR, wrote that he has “reviewed the bill,” and “I don’t think it will solve our border crisis, and might make it worse. I will oppose it.”
“Joe Biden created this crisis by design,” Cotton stated. “He can and should reverse his open border policies today.”
As CatholicVote previously reported:
According to a January 1 FOX News report, “more than 302,000 migrants were documented attempting to cross the U.S. southern border” last month. “It is the highest total for a single month ever recorded.” It is also the first time migrant encounters have exceeded 300,000.
>> TRUMP CBP CHIEF: ‘WHAT IS CHRISTIAN’ ABOUT BIDEN BORDER POLICIES <<
Also on Sunday, over a dozen state governors met with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott at the state’s border with Mexico.
Late last month, all but one of Abbott’s fellow Republican governors signed a statement supporting his decision to invoke Texas’ “Constitutional Right to Self-defense.”
“President Biden and his Administration have left Americans and our country completely vulnerable to unprecedented illegal immigration pouring across the Southern border,” the governors wrote.
“We stand in solidarity with our fellow Governor, Greg Abbott, and the State of Texas in utilizing every tool and strategy, including razor wire fences, to secure the border,” they added at the time:
We do it in part because the Biden Administration is refusing to enforce immigration laws already on the books and is illegally allowing mass parole across America of migrants who entered our country illegally
