House Speaker Mike Johnson has declared the so-called “border security bill” released by a bipartisan negotiating group of Senators last night as dead on arrival. Writing on “X,” the social media platform formerly known as Prince, I mean Twitter, Speaker Johnson said, “I’ve seen enough. This bill is even worse than we expected, and won’t come close to ending the border catastrophe the President has created. As the lead Democrat negotiator proclaimed: Under this legislation, “the border never closes.” That quote refers to a statement by Democrat Chris Murphy which put the lie to the claim that the bill closed the border and that people would be turned away:
A requirement the President to funnel asylum claims to the land ports of entry when more than 5,000 people cross a day. The border never closes, but claims must be processed at the ports.
When the bill was released last night, it quickly became obvious to anyone with “eyes to see” that the bill was a sham. Though Biden is given the authority to “close the border” via an emergency declaration, he is not required to do so. Even if he elects to do so, he can only close the border for a limited number of days, and large swaths of the illegal immigrant stream are fenced from the provisions of the bill.
Speaker Johnson took the first step in killing the bill last week when he introduced an Israel funding bill independent of the border bill.
The bill had one purpose: to take illegal immigration off the table as a campaign issue. It is easy to see why the Democrats want it to go away but more difficult to understand the GOP’s motivation. Noises were made about this giving a future President Trump a strong bill to work with, but I disagree. I think this can be attributed to McConnell and his pals wanting to help Biden win in 2024 but lacking the guts to come out and campaign for him. Tying this atrocity to funding for Israel and Ukraine, both of which will pass easily as standalone bills, was Senate’s to give a sense of urgency to the wh’le packStandalone’ it through the House.
Ram? Did I say ram? My bad.
This bill is the worst screwing in the Senate since that Dem staffer filmed his porno on Klobuchar’s desk. https://t.co/v8WDDcgaAf
— Rep. Mike Collins (@RepMikeCollins) February 5, 2024
