House GOP stalwarts are pointing fingers at the border while doing nothing to fix it, asserts Congressman Eric Swalwell (D-CA). The legislative impasse on border measures is deliberate, Swalwell says, because Republicans — implicitly the GOP’s presidential frontrunner — can’t campaign on promises to fix problems that are already fixed.
“They don’t want to solve this problem,” Swalwell says of his MAGA colleagues in the House. “They want to use it and exploit it and exploit victims so they have a political narrative.”
[In response, Republicans characterize the border measures that Democrats — and even Senate Republicans — are offering as weak sauce compared with their own ideas in H.R.2, a “sweeping bill that would drastically restrict the asylum process while establishing a vast new surveillance system to forcibly freeze regional migration and crack down on the existing undocumented population.”]
Swalwell says the House GOP’s unwillingness to compromise isn’t, as portrayed, a resolute stand to protect America, but a disingenuous ploy to foment dysfunction — and to lay vote-curdling blame for border problems on the Biden administration in an election year.
Bringing up a bipartisan Senate deal that would help at the border, Swalwell says it’s DOA in the House because “Republican colleagues have said out loud we’re never going to support that [because] that would help the President. They’ve actually said that.”
Swalwell: Senate negotiations are taking place where they are trying to find more solutions and more resources at the border. That’s DOA here where Republicans have said they won’t support it because it would help the president. Democrats want the Fix. MAGA Republicans want Fox pic.twitter.com/mURtJI9yoS
— Acyn (@Acyn) January 18, 2024
Swalwell doesn’t make the accusation in a vacuum. Congressman Jamie Raskin (D-MD) also says the GOP leadership in the House is primarily interested in furthering “chaos” at the border — Raskin says the order to prevent any meaningful solutions at the border comes directly from Trump, the GOP presidential frontrunner who wants to use the chaos as a campaign weapon.
Rep. Raskin: Republicans are taking orders from Donald Trump and actively obstructing a deal on immigration and the border. Just like how Trump is openly hoping for an economic crash. They want chaos pic.twitter.com/ZPVRtc6pKd
— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) January 17, 2024
House Speaker Johnson (R-LA) has said he has spoken frequently with former President Trump about potential bipartisan border legislation, which Trump has “urged” Johnson not to accept.
Mike Johnson admits he is receiving orders from Trump on whether to sabotage a border deal for political purposes pic.twitter.com/mZpQGBJv8t
— DNC War Room (@DNCWarRoom) January 18, 2024