By Valerie Gonzalez and Stephen Groves | Associated Press
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.
With the number of illegal crossings into the United States topping 10,000 on several days last month, the border city 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.
An agreement in the lengthy talks in Washington could unlock Senate GOP support for Biden’s $110 billion package for Ukraine, Israel and other U.S. security priorities. In meetings, Sens. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz, James Lankford, R-Okla., and Chris Murphy, D-Conn., are trying to make progress before Congress returns to Washington next week.
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. It would 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.
At a news conference, Johnson also suggested he could use a looming government funding deadline as further leverage.
“If President Biden wants a supplemental spending bill focused on national security, it better begin with defending America’s national…
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