By Stephen Groves and Lisa Mascaro | Associated Press
WASHINGTON — House Speaker Mike Johnson told fellow Republicans on Tuesday that sweeping changes to U.S. border policy would be their “hill to die on” in negotiations that have already grown tense as Congress considers President Joe Biden’s $110 billion package for the wars in Ukraine and Israel and other security needs.
Johnson delivered the hard-line message Tuesday morning ahead of classified briefings the Biden administration organized to underscore how desperately the aid is needed. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was scheduled to address the senators via video but had to cancel his appearance, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said.
Instead, the meeting erupted in frustration and yelling as Republicans insisted on including border security in the discussion. Democrats have dismissed the Republican border proposals as attempts to return to the draconian policies of former President Donald Trump.
Biden is pushing a reluctant Congress to approve the military, economic and humanitarian aid package, but the injection of border security into the negotiations has made progress difficult. The Senate was headed to a test vote Wednesday, but Republicans have promised to block it.
“The battle is for the border,” Johnson said at a news conference. “We do that first as a top priority, and we’ll take care of these other obligations.”
Moments earlier, Johnson told GOP lawmakers in a closed-door meeting that their “hill to die on” in the negotiations was border policy, according to a Republican in the meeting. Conservatives are pressing for the provisions in H.R. 2, a bill they passed in May that would restart construction of walls along the southern border and make it drastically more difficult for migrants to claim asylum in the U.S.
Johnson reiterated his stance in a letter to the White House on Tuesday, one day after officials warned that the U.S. will run out of funding to send…
Read the full article here
