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Speaker Johnson slaps down Biden admin border ‘funding’ claims as ‘desperate attempt to shift blame’

January 6, 2024 | | Print Article

House Speaker Mike Johnson dismissed as “desperate” White House claims that it is Republicans who are to blame for the catastrophe unfolding at the U.S. southern border.

The Biden administration has recently accused Republicans of having an “anti-border security record” and claimed they are looking to cut the number of Border Patrol agents, Fox News Digital reports, and, in a memo from Johnson’s office, the Speaker pushed back — hard.

“From the start of President Biden’s term, House Republicans have voted for significant year over year funding increases for Border Patrol and ICE beyond what his administration has requested,” Johnson wrote. “And from the start of President Biden’s term, his Administration has implemented policies that have undermined security and created a humanitarian crisis at the Southern border.”

“Now, in a desperate attempt to shift blame for a crisis their policies have induced, they have argued it’s a funding problem,” the memo continued. “Clearly, they have no facts to back up their claim.”

White House spokesperson Andrew Bates did his best to flip the script as Johnson was visiting the border.

“After voting in 2023 to eliminate over 2,000 Border Patrol agents and erode our capacity to seize fentanyl, House Republicans left Washington in mid-December even as President Biden and Republicans and Democrats in the Senate remained to forge ahead on a bipartisan agreement,” Bates stated.

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“On Day One, President Biden proposed a comprehensive immigration reform plan and followed up by delivering record border security funding every single year of his term,” he said. “House Republicans have obstructed his reform proposal and consistently voted against his unprecedented border security funding year after year, hamstringing our border security in the name of extreme, partisan demands. … Biden’s proposed funding to hire thousands of new Border Patrol agents, hire more asylum officers and immigration judges, provide local communities hosting migrants additional grant funding, and invest in cutting edge technology that is critical to stopping deadly fentanyl from entering our country.”

What Bates doesn’t mention is that the $14 billion for the border the White House has requested is tied to funding for Israel and Ukraine.

“Actions speak louder than words,” Bates said. “House Republicans’ anti-border security record is defined by attempting to cut Customs and Border Protection personnel, opposing President Biden’s record-breaking border security funding, and refusing to take up the President’s supplemental funding request.”

According to Fox News Digital, “The 2,000 CBP cut is based on an Office of Management and Budget analysis of the Republican budget plan from last year, which found that funding cuts would lead to a staffing cut as it laid out.”

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White House press secretary Karine Jean Pierre dutifully repeated the administration’s talking points, accusing Republicans of pulling “political stunts.”

“But Johnson’s office pointed to fact checks that have rated the claim about CBP staffing cuts false or mostly false, including from PolitiFact, which called the claim about staffing cuts ‘more of a guess’ and noted the measures don’t explicitly say they would cut staffing in the way the White House described,” Fox News Digital reports.

In the memo, Johnson’s office noted that appropriations bills have boosted security funding, “including Border Patrol agents at the highest level ever funded, and ICE custody operations at a level more than ever previously appropriated.”

“Funding for Border Patrol operations and related Southwest border requirements has increased by over $2.28B, or 47%, since FY21,” the memo states. “Similar ICE operations funding has increased by $860M, and in FY23, Congress rejected cuts the President requested to ICE funding that would have significantly cut detention capacity and overall immigration enforcement operations.”

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As for the $14 billion funding request, the majority of it would go to management and processing, the memo points out. A whopping $3 billion would go to non-government organizations (NGOs). Rather than focus on border operations, migrants would receive cash assistance. Only 17% of the requested funds would go to Border Patrol.

“The President’s supplemental request is little more than misdirection and false advertising that would do little to secure the border,” according to the memo.

Bates ignored the facts presented in Johnson’s memo, claiming it only proves that “we struck a nerve by highlighting House Republicans’ actions to eliminate 2,000 Border Patrol agents and weaken our crackdown on fentanyl.”

“Speaker Johnson and House Republicans left Washington for an early vacation in mid-December while President Biden and Senators from both parties continued working to find common ground,” he said. “The President is focused on securing the resources he requested in the National Security supplemental to secure our border, including more Border Patrol agents, asylum officers, immigration judges, and technology to catch fentanyl.”

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Flanked by 60 Republican lawmakers, Johnson pushed the H.R. 2, a border security bill that was passed last year by House Republicans. The legislation called for the “Remain in Mexico” policy to be re-established, allowed construction on the wall to resume, limited the number of releases and tightened the credible fear standard.

H.R. 2, Johnson said, is the “necessary ingredient” because “it has provisions that fix each of these problems and these things work together.”

“Democrats in the Senate have ruled out H.R. 2 and similar proposals as a non-starter,” Fox News Digital reports. “Even some reported concessions by the Biden administration, including the establishment of a Title 42-style removal authority, have been met with anger from some liberal Democrats.”

Melissa Fine
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