House Speaker Mike Johnson said securing the U.S.-Mexico border with “real transformative policy change” is crucial in his meeting with President Biden on Wednesday.
Rep. Johnson, Louisiana Republican, is slated to meet with the president and the three other congressional leaders to discuss the White House’s $110 billion supplemental funding request that includes emergency spending for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.
That package has been snarled by Senate negotiations to include more conservative border policy changes. Mr. Johnson said he would make it clear to Mr. Biden that border security must be a priority over anything else in the spending request, including funding for Ukraine’s war against Russia.
“But before we even talk about Ukraine, I’m going to tell the president what I was telling all of you and what we told the American people: border, border, border,” Mr. Johnson said at the House Republican leadership press conference at the U.S. Capitol. “We have to take care of our own house. We have to secure our own border before we talk about doing anything else.”
On Ukraine aid, Mr. Johnson wanted assurances from Mr. Biden that the country “would not be another Afghanistan.” He said that he would press the president on the administration’s end game for the conflict and what accountability measures would be put in place for continued funding from the U.S.
House Republicans are pushing for more stringent border policies, like former President Donald Trump’s Remain in Mexico plan, to be included in the president’s spending request.
However, Republican senators say the Secure the Border Act can’t pass in the Democratic-led Senate, and the White House has deemed the policy changes a nonstarter.
Leaked details of the Senate’s border plan, which would let migrants crossing illegally be immediately eligible for work permits and allow up to 5,000 illegals to cross the border daily before new expulsion powers kick in, have all but doomed the deal and spending package in the GOP-led House.
Mr. Johnson said that for him to support a border deal in the spending package, it must include Remain in Mexico, end catch and release, reform the asylum and parole process, and restart construction of a border wall — all key points in the Secure the Border Act.
“Those elements are critically important,” he said. “You can’t choose from among those on a menu and assume that you’re going to solve the problem.”
• Alex Miller can be reached at amiller@washingtontimes.com.
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