Biden supports senate border deal, vows immediate closure

Biden endorses Senate’s ‘Border Security’ deal as ‘toughest, fairest’ yet, vows US-Mexico border closure post-signing

President Joe Biden has expressed support on Friday for a border security deal being discussed in the U.S. Senate, describing it as the “toughest and fairest” solution yet.

He also firmly stated his intention to close the U.S.-Mexico border immediately upon signing the legislation, in response to overwhelming migrant numbers. 

Some Republicans have set a deal on border security as a condition for further Ukraine aid. 

Biden responded in a statement that Republicans and Democrats have in fact been working intensively on a bipartisan deal to address those border security issues.

“What’s been negotiated would – if passed into law – be the toughest and fairest set of reforms to secure the border we’ve ever had in our country,” he said in a statement. “If you’re serious about the border crisis, pass a bipartisan bill and I will sign it.”

“It would give me, as president, a new emergency authority to shut down the border when it becomes overwhelmed. And if given that authority, I would use it the day I sign the bill into law,” he said.

The bipartisan deal had advanced in the Senate in recent days. It would couple massive new aid for pro-Western Ukraine’s military – soon entering its third year of fighting off President Vladimir Putin’s invasion – and wide-ranging reforms to U.S. immigration policy, including more ability to seal the porous southern border.

But the complex negotiations now appear to have collapsed.

This follows lobbying by Donald Trump, the former president and likely Republican nominee to contest the November presidential election.

Trump, who has questioned the U.S. support for Ukraine’s war effort, has placed fear over illegal immigration at the heart of his platform.

This week, he called the extensive border reforms being negotiated “meaningless,” although senior Republicans had previously praised the proposed measures as the toughest new restrictions on border crossings in years.

Democrats narrowly control the Senate, while Republicans have their own slim majority in the House, with far-right Trump allies holding the balance of power there.

Johnson said Biden was responsible for a “border catastrophe” and said Republicans would seek to remove Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in an impeachment process starting next week.

A vote on impeaching Mayorkas will be held “as soon as possible,” Johnson wrote.

The Democratic-controlled Senate will all but certainly acquit Mayorkas, meaning he will not be forced from his job, which includes responsibility for border security.

Source: Turkiye Today with AFP

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