Speaker Johnson demands hard-line policies during a border visit as Ukraine aid hangs in the balance
EAGLE PASS, Texas — U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson led about 60 fellow Republicans in Congress on a visit Wednesday to the Mexican border to demand hard-line immigration policies in exchange for backing President Joe Biden’s emergency wartime funding request for Ukraine. He expressed serious doubts about whether he would support a bipartisan compromise.
The trip to Eagle Pass, Texas, came as the Senate engages in delicate negotiations in hopes of striking a deal on border policies that could unlock Senate GOP support for Biden’s $110 billion package for Ukraine, Israel and other U.S. security priorities.
But Johnson, R-La., told The Associated Press during the border tour that he was holding firmly to the policies of a bill passed by House Republicans in May without a single Democratic vote. The bill, H.R. 2, would revive many of the policies pursued by former President Donald Trump, build more of the border wall and impose new restrictions on asylum seekers. Democrats called the legislation “cruel” and “anti-immigrant,” and Biden promised a veto.
“If it looks like H.R. 2, we’ll talk about it,” Johnson said of any border legislation that emerges from the Senate.
With the number of illegal crossings into the United States topping 10,000 on several days last month, Eagle Pass has been at the center of Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star, his nearly $10 billion initiative that has tested the federal government’s authority over immigration and elevated the political fight over the issue.
The GOP House members touted their event as the largest congressional border trip ever. They traveled in two large buses beneath an international bridge in Eagle Pass where just two weeks ago illegal crossings prompted a large federal response that included closing railroad traffic and creating a large field for processing migrants. By Wednesday, the field sat empty with only stakes in the ground and orange fencing.
At a news conference, Johnson suggested he could use a looming government funding deadline as further leverage.
