As part of a letter in which he also explained the imminent nature of the House’s impeachment effort into Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson explained that the Senate immigration deal is not one that the House would consider. The Senate has, in any case, struggled to reach a definitive deal on the matter.
Explaining why such a deal is not one that the House will contemplate, Speaker Johnson said that the GOP majority has concrete legislative demands that it sees as necessary to deal with the border situation and that the rumored Senate deal did not include those. Particularly, it did not adopt the HR 2 provisions, such as ending Catch and Release and reimplementing the Trump Administration’s “Remain in Mexico” policy.
Introducing the matter and commenting on the Senate’s inability to make a suitable deal, Speaker Johnson wrote, “I wanted to provide a brief update regarding the supplemental and the border, since the Senate appears unable to reach any agreement. If rumors about the contents of the draft proposal are true, it would have been dead on arrival in the House anyway.”
Continuing, he noted that the House has already passed and sent to the Senate the legislative package it sees as appropriate and necessary, HR 2. Explaining as much, he said, “Nine months have now passed since we sent our Secure the Border Act (HR 2) to the Senate. As we have explained repeatedly, that bill contains the core legislative reforms that are necessary to actually compel the Biden administration to resolve the border catastrophe.”
Explaining what specific provisions his fellow GOP members of the House see as necessary to fix that border catastrophe, he said, “The bill’s provisions include transformative corrections, such as the ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy, the end of ‘Catch and Release,’ meaningful reforms to the existing broken asylum and parole systems, and continued construction of a wall at our southern border.”
And, concluding the section by reminding readers of the concrete nature of his stance on the HR 2 issue, Speaker Johnson wrote, “Since the day I became Speaker, I have assured our Senate colleagues the House would not accept any counterproposal if it would not actually solve the problems that have been created by the administration’s subversive policies.”
Speaker Johnson has indeed remained firm on that issue. When a rumored Senate deal hit the headlines earlier in January of 2024, Speaker Johnson posted “Absolutely Not” on X and, in a press conference on the issue, said, “We’re not playing politics at this. We’re demanding real, transformative policy change, because that’s what the American people need and deserve, and that they’re demanding as well.”
In a tweet about the Biden Administration’s handling of the border situation, Speaker Johnson ripped into Kamala, posting, “When asked about solutions to the border catastrophe, Vice President Harris recommended that Congress grant mass amnesty and spend taxpayer dollars to process – not stop – more illegals. This answer from President Biden’s ‘border [chief]’ is exactly why the administration can’t be trusted to solve the catastrophe they, themselves, created.” Watch her here:
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