A group of Senate Republicans are fed up with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s leadership and call a bipartisan border bill “dead” scheduled for a first floor vote on Wednesday. expressed dissatisfaction with him and called for his resignation.
Sens. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said in a press conference Tuesday afternoon that Sen. McConnell (R-Ky.) would “withdraw” from the border agreement. They say the border deal expands President Biden’s powers. It does not completely close the borders.
“Just because we’re in negotiations doesn’t mean we’re committing to vote yes on this. You’re hearing this from some of our leadership, but we’re not promising that they’ll stop.” “I hope so, but the idea that we have committed to supporting what we get in this negotiation is pure bullshit,” said Vance, one of Congress’ most vocal critics of aid to Ukraine. he said.
He added: “We supported negotiations that brought common sense border security to this country. We did not agree to a border fig leaf that would send an additional $61 billion to Ukraine.”
Cruz, who has been a harsh critic of McConnell since 2013, said the longtime leader got no response when he asked, “Is there any appetite for us to fight?” As for the closed-door border negotiations that began in December, Republicans are now determined to taint them.
“Everyone here supported the leadership challenge to Mitch McConnell in November,” Cruz said. “I think Republican leaders should actually lead this conference and advance Republican priorities.”
Republican senators call for ‘sufficient time’ to consider border security bill
FOX News Digital has reached out to McConnell’s office for comment. “I think we can all agree that Sen. Cruz is not a fan,” McConnell told reporters after Tuesday’s Republican luncheon.
The lead Republican negotiator, Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma, struck an agreement with Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.), and Biden administration officials. He is facing backlash from his party’s caucus. More than 20 Republicans have already vowed to kill the bill on Wednesday, saying they need “sufficient time” for amendments and further analysis.
Meanwhile, Republicans are also taking note of a post Mr. Murphy posted on X on Sunday after the documents were released, which said, “The border will never close, but applications must be processed at the port.” Cruz argued that the Biden administration already has the ability to close the border and turn back migrants under current immigration law.
“In his first week in office, he halted construction of the border wall and reinstated the disastrous policy of ‘catch-and-release’ that led to the incredibly successful Mexican government that caused this explosion. We have withdrawn from the Remain Agreement,” Cruz said. “It also means that Joe Biden could solve it tomorrow by reversing these three decisions.”
Cruz said the only way for the border bill to cross the finish line for a national supplementary package is for the Senate to pass HR2, the immigration bill passed by the Republican-led House last year that includes Trump-era expulsion and security measures. That’s true, he said. . Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York has already labeled the bill a “dead” in the Senate.
Meanwhile, the House has repeatedly called the Senate’s border bill “dysfunctional on arrival,” making it a near-impossible scenario for any border security bill to pass.
Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), McConnell’s unsuccessful candidate in the last election, said the border line should have been held by the entire Republican conference to propose amendments, but “several people We negotiated.”
“Mr. McConnell has decided not to force a lawless administration to enforce border security, so this is our position.”
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who again voted “no” on Wednesday, told reporters that there were “fatal flaws” when Mr. McConnell “entered into secret negotiations with Mr. Schumer.” ” he said. Vance added that Lankford is at a negotiating disadvantage because of White House policies.
“This will normalize thousands of people a day,” Johnson said. “Perhaps having something like a discretionary standard would undermine the ability of future presidents to protect our borders.”
At Tuesday’s press conference, other Republicans, including Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas and Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, also spoke out against the bill, claiming it was “full of loopholes.” Ta.
“There’s a loophole that allows Mack trucks, 747s and Airbus A-380s to operate at the same time, and that’s alarming,” said Lee, who was one of the first to criticize the deal.
Mr. Marshall defended Mr. Lankford and did not even say that “Henry Kissinger could have negotiated a better deal if he had played the cards he was dealt.”
“This is not on James Lankford’s back,” he said. “I’m not going to speak for James. I think his hope was that we could accept this bill and fix it and make it better. But unfortunately, life support has been turned off. I don’t think there’s anything I can do about it other than to declare him dead. “
Senate passes long-awaited border bill, making major asylum changes
A group of migrants heads toward the U.S.-Mexico border in El Paso, Texas, on February 1, 2024. (Lokman Vral Elibor/Anadolu via Getty Images)
The bill, announced Sunday night after months of negotiations, totals just over $118 billion and provides for 50,000 new visas. Biden’s original request was about $106 billion.
On Tuesday, Biden said the border package “doesn’t address everything” he wanted, such as creating a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants already living in the United States, but he said He called it “the toughest and fairest law ever.” No proposals have been made based on national borders. ”
“I call on Congress to pass this bill and get it to my desk immediately,” Biden said. “But if this bill is defeated… every day from now until November, the American people will learn that the only reason our border is unsafe is because of Donald Trump and his MAGA Republican friends. Let’s go.”
During the negotiations, President Trump told senators through his platform Truth Social that there would be no agreement “unless we get everything we need to stop the invasion of millions and millions of people.” urged to refuse.
Republicans are concerned that the bill does not uniformly reduce the number of border crossings to zero. The bill’s provisions would go into effect if a person encounters an average of 5,000 or more illegal immigrants per day over a seven-day period, or a total of 8,500 or more aliens on any calendar day. The calculations consider encounters at the Southwest Land Border Ports, ports along the Southern Coastal Border, and Southwest Land Border ports of entry.
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The bill would allocate $20 billion for immigration enforcement, including the hiring of thousands of new workers to review asylum cases and hundreds of Border Patrol agents. Some of the taxpayer money will go toward bailing out shelters and services in cities across the country that have struggled to cope with the influx of immigrants in recent months.
However, the bill provides that the President “may direct the Secretary to suspend the use of border emergency powers on an emergency basis if the President determines that it is in the national interest to temporarily suspend such powers.” are doing. A “border emergency” imposed with a goal of 5,000 border crossings per day within a week could be overturned by the president.
