Conservatives in both the House and Senate are threatening to shut down the government unless Democrats and President Joe Biden agree to Republican demands on border security.
The threat comes after lawmakers failed to reach a deal on border policy changes that could unlock GOP support for aid to Ukraine and Israel.
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Now, Republican lawmakers are looking to pair major border security measures with looming government funding deadlines. Congress must provide funding for military construction and the Departments of Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Energy, Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development by Jan. 19. The rest of the government must be funded by Feb. 2.
“There’s going to be a big effort to make sure we do nothing on funding unless we secure the border,” Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) told the Hill. “That’s going to be the big fight.”
Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) echoed a similar threat in a post on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
“Secure the border. Or shut down the government. @POTUS, it’s time to make your choice,” Lee wrote.
The comments from Republican senators come after Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX), the policy chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, circulated a letter to his GOP colleagues on Tuesday urging them to block critical government funding bills until Democrats agree to pass the border security and asylum policies that comprise H.R. 2, the Secure the Border Act the House passed this spring.
“This means we must make funding for federal government operations contingent on the President signing H.R. 2, or its functional equivalent, into law and stopping the flow across our border (with demonstrable near-zero results),” Roy wrote, referring to the Republican border security legislation.
The Democratic-led Senate considers the House bill a nonstarter without significant changes, and even if it did pass the legislation, Biden has previously threatened to veto it should it reach his desk.
The White House is attempting to shift blame, highlighting the border security policies they have proposed this past year.
“House Republicans are once more compromising America’s national security and economic growth with shutdown threats,” said Andrew Bates, a White House spokesman. “President Biden submitted his border security funding plans in August and again in October. But after taking the country to the brink of a shutdown in the fall and forcing three weeks of paralysis as they found a new Speaker, the House GOP left Washington in mid-December for an early vacation they still haven’t returned from.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) continues to acknowledge that Congress must address the crisis at the border. Senate Democrats are attempting to negotiate compromise border security legislation that would represent a watered-down version of the House bill.
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“We need to fix the border. There’s virtually unanimous agreement among Democrats and Republicans about that,” Schumer told reporters Wednesday.
“We just have to figure out how to do it in a way that can get 60 votes here in the Senate, and the majority of votes there in the House, and get to the president’s desk. So everyone’s going to have to give something to get this done,” he said.
