Schumer rams through sham border bill to hamstring Trump

Senate Republicans are furious over an attempt by their Democrat counterparts to move forward with a “partisan” border bill that would impede President-elect Donald Trump’s efforts to secure the border.

The 2025 Homeland Security Appropriations bill conceived by Democrats doesn’t include money to hire additional Border Patrol agents or build new border barriers but does include plenty of extra money for resettling even more criminal aliens.

Even some of the softest RINOs have come out against the bill, including Senate Appropriations Committee ranking member Susan Collins.

In a statement, Collins slammed the “unilateral decision from the [Democrat] Majority to post a partisan measure on a critical appropriations bill that is meant to help secure our borders and combat the surge of deadly fentanyl and other illegal narcotics flooding our communities.”

“This type of action undercuts our efforts over the last two years to reach bipartisan consensus and allow Senators an opportunity to debate and amend appropriations bills. It is critical that in the next Congress, we get back to work and restore regular order,” she added.

Sen. Katie Britt, the ranking member of the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, also torched Democrats over their bill.

“On a unilateral, partisan basis, Senate Democrats chose to post a Homeland Security bill that falls woefully short of what’s needed to combat America’s border crisis and strengthen interior immigration enforcement,” she said in a statement.

“Senate Democrats know [Trump] is going to immediately take action to clean up the Biden-Harris Administration’s mess at the border, so instead of working with Republicans to create a responsible appropriations bill they chose to release a product that would leave a Trump Administration short of the resources they need to secure our border,” she added.

Meanwhile, Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Patty Murray, a Democrat, defended the bill by citing alleged “bipartisanship.”

“It includes much-needed new resources to stop the flow of fentanyl, meet pressing needs at our border, disrupt and dismantle transnational criminal organizations, help communities recover from disaster, and so much else, and it is written to pass with strong bipartisan support so that Congress can deliver these essential funds,” she said in a statement to Fox News.

“With just weeks left until government funding expires, Republicans in Congress should work with Democrats to negotiate and pass reasonable, bipartisan legislation to fund the government and make these new resources a reality,” she added.

All this comes following a report from The Hill about how Senate Republicans want to use budget reconciliation to bypass a Democrat filibuster and pass a tough border bill next year.

The only thing holding Republicans back is the same thing that impeded their Democrat colleagues in 2021 — Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough.

“[Their ability to use budget reconciliation] would depend on whether the Senate parliamentarian rules that it complies with the chamber’s Byrd Rule, which requires that legislation produce a change in spending or revenues and have a budgetary impact that’s not merely incidental to the policy change,” The Hill notes.

“A Senate GOP aide warned that while funding for the border wall and more Border Patrol agents would easily be allowed in a budget reconciliation bill under the Senate’s rules, reforms to the nation’s asylum and parole laws, which Republicans say the Biden administration used to allow millions of migrants into the country, may not pass muster,” according to the outlet.

“Some of it could be possible, but a lot of it could fall to the merely incidental rule,” the unnamed GOP aide said. “I think there will be limitations to the changes to the Immigration and Nationality Act, and going into the criminal titles and changing the codes, some of that will be pretty hard to do in a reconciliation setting.”

The only alternative is to pursue these reforms through executive action, which is a problem because the next Democrat president could just undo them in a finger snap.

Vivek Saxena

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