05/15/2022
Earlier: Biden Rush: Arrests By Border Patrol "Soared To The Highest Levels Ever Recorded"
Congress sent a depressing message to Americans last week: Ukraine matters more than you. The House sped through a bill to give $40 billion to the war-torn state. Only 57 Republicans voted against the bill; not a single Democrat opposed it. “I think we’d all agree the most important thing going on in the world right now is the war in Ukraine,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell declared [House Passes $40 Billion More in Ukraine Aid, With Few Questions Asked, by Catie Edmondson and Emily Cochrane, New York Times, May 10, 2022]. Memo to Mitch: It’s not. Immigration is.
Only Sen. Rand Paul, who wants an inspector general to oversee the money, stands between this bill and President Joe Biden’s signature [Rand Paul Blocks Quick Passage of Ukraine Aid Bill, by Lindsay Wise, Wall Street Journal, May 12, 2022]. He’s the only Republican senator who seems concerned about giving billions of dollars to a corrupt foreign nation. Meanwhile, Congress has done little or nothing about the invasion at the southern border. Still, Congress might just do something to stop the invasion at the border if enough legislators start caring more about this country than one on the other side of the planet.
A big question is why they think Ukraine is more important than the border. It’s not one of the top concerns to voters and the war doesn’t seem to threaten American lives at all [Economy and abortion top voter issues ahead of midterms, 4 in 5 say US on wrong track, by Mark Moore, New York Post, May 12, 2021]. Answer: the Ruling Class thinks foreign policy matters more than domestic policy, and after the embarrassing withdrawal from Afghanistan, that the Globalist American Empire must reassert its strength. Ukraine is the perfect opportunity, as well, to weaken the adversary our globalist elites see in Russia, and maintain a tight grip over Europe. Of course, only the Ruling Class benefits from this arrangement. Ordinary Americans don’t.
The Ukraine vote also explains why the Ruling Class doesn’t care about the border. It wants to import more “migrants” for cheap labor and to replace the pesky Historic American Nation. The twisted priority makes sense when seen in that light. A few billion dollars for a border wall was too much for the political elite to stomach. But $40 billion for Ukraine is a drop in the bucket. Thus, money was not the reason the Ruling Class and its Treason Lobby subsidiaries opposed the wall; the issues for them were restricting the importation of cheap labor, which the GOP Establishment opposes, and stopping The Great Replacement, which the Democrat Establishment doesn’t want.
Ukraine is not our ally. Russia is not our enemy. We need to address our crippling debt, inflation and immigration problems. None of this is Putin’s fault.
— Rep. Paul Gosar, DDS (@RepGosar) May 12, 2022
I voted NO to send $40 Billion American tax dollars to Ukraine.
That bill does things we should not be doing.
Americans are suffering from a baby formula crisis, a border crisis, skyrocketing inflation and fuel crisis, and they are fed up with America last politicians. https://t.co/VQ3xpq0lnw
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) May 11, 2022
.@RepMattGaetz: "Last night this House approved $40 billion for Ukraine as American families go w/o baby formula. To put that in context, Biden’s budget calls for $15.3 billion for customs & border patrol. So apparently Ukraine is more than twice as important as our homeland." pic.twitter.com/77QAtj1Wem
— The Columbia Bugle 🇺🇸 (@ColumbiaBugle) May 11, 2022
But all is not doom and gloom. A number of House Republicans have attacked the stupidity of wasting billions on Ukraine while illegal aliens are crossing the border at a rate of 200,000 or more a month.
And Tucker Carlson attacked the measure for putting America last. The country has spent more money on Ukraine in the last six months, he noted, than it has on our own infrastructure during the last year. When McConnell says political elites agree that Ukraine is the most important issue, he’s telling the Historic American Nation it doesn’t matter [Our leaders believe protecting Ukraine is more important than protecting you, by Tucker Carlson, Fox News, May 11, 2022].
While most Republicans look useless when it comes to subsidizing Ukraine, they might just partially redeem themselves. Senate Republicans have insisted that a measure to continue Title 42 public-health expulsions be included in a COVID relief bill. No Title 42, no vote on the Covid relief. McConnell is backing this pledge. Democrats appear ready to cave [Dems edge closer to giving GOP a border vote as a price for Covid aid, by Marianne Levine and Burgess Everett, Politico, May 10, 2022].
This might be the first time that Republicans have united to push Democrats into backing a border security measure during this Congress. The Title 42 amendment’s lead sponsors are Republican Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma and Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. It has four other Democratic co-sponsors: West Virginia’s Joe Manchin, Montana’s Jon Tester, Arizona’s Mark Kelly, and New Hampshire’s Maggie Hassan. Kelly and Hassan face competitive elections this year and hope backing the bill demonstrates their “moderate” bona fides [Bipartisan Senate group bids to block lifting Title 42, by Alayna Treene, Axios, April 6, 2022].
Whether hard-left Democrats will turn against the bill if it includes Title 42 or whether Biden signs it are both imponderable. The president might hope a federal court orders him to continue Title 42 expulsions, which would provide cover to sign a bill without alienating the far-left base [Court set to rule on planned end to border expulsion policy, by Suzanne Monyak, Roll Call, May 12, 2022].
But, of course, that measure won’t solve the border crisis, which Biden and his Homeland Security chief, Alejandro Mayorkas, created purposely. More must be done. The GOP needs a concrete plan to solve the border crisis. Complaining about Biden’s “inability” to stop the illegal-alien won’t cut it.
One idea Republicans can back comes from Texas Rep. Chip Roy and 17 cosponsors [House Republicans, led by Rep. Roy, introduce bill to suspend entry of illegal immigrants into US, by Adam Shaw and Kelly Laco, Fox News, May 13, 2022]. His measure would require Homeland Security to suspend the entry of all illegal aliens even if they plead asylum. In other words, it would force Biden and Mayorkas to enforce existing immigration laws, which require the detention of illegals. If DHS fails to do so, state attorneys general could file lawsuits against federal authorities. The bill would stop illegals and Mayorkas from abusing the asylum process.
And last week, Heritage Foundation, NumbersUSA, the Federation for American Immigration Reform and other conservative groups unveiled their own worthy proposal in an Open Letter to Congress:
The letter calls on leaders to “exclude amnesty of any type,” to create an immediate expulsion authority, clarify that migrants are ineligible for asylum if they came through a safe third country, restrict prosecutorial discretional and reform the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) which has been blamed by many officials for encouraging the surge in unaccompanied children in recent years.
The list of legislative proposals includes the completion of the border wall, the raising of the "credible fear" standard for asylum, increased resources for Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) — specifically for deportation officers and detention beds. They also include a full implementation of the Trump-era "Remain-in-Mexico" policy, to clarify that gang violence and domestic violence are not grounds for asylum, and for states to be allowed to have the authority to participate in immigration enforcement.
[Immigration hawks, ex-Trump officials urge GOP leaders to unite behind ‘flagship’ bill to end border crisis, by Adam Shaw, Fox News, May 11, 2022]
While most lawmakers haven’t endorsed the proposal, it does carry the signatures of former Trump officials such as Mark Meadows, Chad Wolf, and Ken Cuccinelli. It’s likely that conservative lawmakers will introduce a bill based on its recommendations if so many conservative heavy-hitters are behind it. And, happily, sponsors say they will draft a more expansive measure to reduce legal immigration.
If the GOP truly put America First, it would campaign on the plan proposed in that letter and forget Ukraine, which is thousands of miles away. Russia is not flooding our country with illegals and drugs. We are unharmed by what Russia does in Ukraine.
We are harmed, and grievously so, by the Biden Regime’s aiding and abetting an illegal-alien invasion. It’s time for Republicans to put America First. It’s time for them to forget Ukraine’s border and focus on ours.
Washington Watcher II is an anonymous DC insider.
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