The House speaker dismissed Democrats’ plans to bring a failed border deal up for a vote in the Senate this week as an attempt to provide political “cover” to Democrats running in swing states this fall.
In a Monday statement, Speaker Johnson (R-La.) announced the border bill, should it pass the Senate, is “dead on arrival” in the House and called on Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) to bring up Republicans’ comprehensive border bill, H.R. 2, instead.
“For more than three years now, Congressional Democrats have stood by while the Biden Administration has opened our borders to criminal drug cartels, terrorists, and untold millions of illegal immigrants,” said Johnson, joined by House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN) and Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), chairwoman of the House Republican Conference.
“Now, Leader Schumer is trying to give his vulnerable members cover by bringing a vote on a bill which has already failed once in the Senate because it would actually codify many of the disastrous Biden open border policies that created this crisis in the first place,” they added.
The vote, announced by Schumer in a Sunday “Dear Colleague” letter, is not expected to be successful.
Republicans have panned the deal as a “fig leaf” that would not actually rein in the influx of illegal immigrants at the southern border. Democrats hailed it as the most conservative border security bill in a generation.
The White House came out in support of the border vote on Monday.
“We strongly support this legislation and call on every Senator to put partisan politics aside and vote to secure the border,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement.
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