The declining situation at the U.S.-Mexico border looms over negotiations over a supplemental funding bill in the Senate that has already been stalled for two months.
Up and down the 2,000-mile southern border, immigrants have illegally crossed into the United States in recent weeks at rates that are higher than the record-setting numbers authorities have seen since President Joe Biden took office nearly three years ago.
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House lawmakers who represent districts on the border are increasingly frustrated as ports of entry shut down to trains, commercial trade, and passenger vehicles days before Christmas, while Senate Democrats are worried the delays will cost Ukraine the tens of billions of dollars on the table and lead to caving into Republicans demands.
One mile up Pennsylvania Avenue, President Joe Biden has urged lawmakers to strike a deal, while former President Donald Trump fanned the flames of the border issue while on the campaign trail.
“They’re poisoning the blood of our country,” Trump said during a rally in Durham, New Hampshire, on Saturday, adding that immigrants from countries in Africa and Asia have been arrested at the southern border. “All over the world, they are pouring into our country.”
A spokesperson for the Biden-Harris 2024 campaign likened Trump’s words to that of Adolf Hitler.
“Donald Trump channeled his role models as he parroted Adolf Hitler, praised Kim Jong Un, and quoted Vladimir Putin while running for president on a promise to rule as a dictator and threaten American democracy,” Biden-Harris campaign spokesperson Ammar Moussa said in a statement.
But aside from rhetoric coming from the Left or the Right, the news coming out of the border has created a greater sense of urgency among Republicans not only to respond to the issue at hand but to deter future illegal immigration after three years in a state of crisis.
Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX), who represents a district that runs along 800 miles of the border, told CBS News’s Face the Nation on Sunday that House Republicans “can’t just wait” for the perfect deal to come through because the situation at the border was at a “national security crisis point.”
“We have to find 218 votes, however we can, and push things over the finish line,” Gonzales said.
In Arizona, Democrats are suddenly united in their condemnation of Biden. Gov. Katie Hobbs (D-AZ), Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) sent Biden a letter this month ordering the federal government to reimburse the state half a billion dollars for what the state has spent responding to the crisis since 2021.
Democrats, including Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), who is running for Sinema’s Senate seat in November, have ratcheted pressure for the White House to respond to the border. Gallego pushed Biden to issue a national emergency declaration, while Hobbs activated the state’s National Guard to assist state police on the border.
Over in West Texas, U.S. customs authorities have shuttered train operations coming into El Paso and told officers to help Border Patrol agents process illegal immigrants coming into custody.
In south-central Texas, the 29,000-person town of Eagle Pass is seeing the equivalent of nearly 10% of its population coming across the border each day, according to federal data that Gonzales provided to the Washington Examiner on Monday.
Although the Biden administration has warned immigrants that it will remove people from the country if they choose not to use legal pathways for admission, border communities, including Lukeville and Nogales, Arizona, as well as Eagle Pass, have seen significant street releases.
Still, Biden was insistent during a speech in Washington earlier this month that Congress ought to pass more than $100 billion in funding to assist Israel and Ukraine in their wars, with roughly a tenth of that money going to U.S. border security. Republicans have harped that this is the time to force conservative border policies into the final bill, but the failure to reach an agreement has delayed responses to foreign affairs and border security.
“This cannot wait. Congress needs to pass supplemental funding for Ukraine before they break for the holiday recess. It’s as simple as that,” Biden said on Dec. 6.
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Senators, however, were doubtful that negotiations would come to a consensus before New Year’s Day.
“There are a number of significant issues our colleagues are still working to resolve,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said Monday. “The effects of years of failed border enforcement are compounded. Border security policy is complex. And our colleagues at the negotiating table are clear-eyed about the fact that getting this agreement right, and producing legislative text, is going to require some time.”
