Republican Senators at a press conference Wednesday in Washington D.C. said that the Senate border deal emerging behind closed doors is “stupid” because it is overly complicated and will drastically increase immigration levels.
Flanked by other Senate conservatives like Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Mike Lee (R-UT), Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) repeatedly took Senate leadership to task for lacking transparency as they negotiate the deal. “We’ve not seen the text, “he repeated throughout his address.
Johnson said from what he knows about it, the bill is overly complicated, “The phrase that keeps going through my mind is Rube Goldberg. This doesn’t have to be complex. This should actually be pretty simple.”
There are too many unanswered questions surrounding this border deal.
The American public wants to secure the border, so why negotiate in private?
Time to trust the public and show them how this bill will actually work. pic.twitter.com/CxVLKKebOr
— Senator Ron Johnson (@SenRonJohnson) January 25, 2024
“But again, because we haven’t seen text, really all I have are questions. These are questions I have that haven’t been answered and I would suggest these are questions you ought to be asking Senate leadership about this bill,” Johnson said.
His big question is why the daily thresholds are so high: “So they’ve set these thresholds at 4,000 and 5,000. Obama’s Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson, I think in 2016 after he’d already left office, said that a thousand people a day, when he was in office, he said that was a bad day [ … ] He said a thousand people a day overwhelm the system.”
Lion Ted Cruz grabs mic in the US Capitol and singe-handely dismantles Joe Biden Administration over Border Crisis, BLASTS weak Republicans for working on Uniparty border deal:
"A STINKING PILE OF CRAP!"🔥 pic.twitter.com/JbfQLnoAf6
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) January 25, 2024
“So if a thousand people a day overwhelms the system, and it is true [ … ] why wouldn’t we set the threshold at a thousand rather than 4,000 or 5,000?” asked the Wisconsin Senator. “It’s going to cost a lot of money [ … ] First of all, we’re going to have to hire a lot more border patrol agents, I guess to process up to 4,000 to 5,000 a day. I mean, isn’t that stupid?”
“I mean, shouldn’t we shut down the border and keep it under a thousand so it doesn’t overwhelm the current system as opposed to stand up a system that can accept four to five thousand people a day?” Johnson asked rhetorically.
“One thing that’s important to me is that we don’t codify Biden’s open-door policy,” Sen. Tim Scott (R-FL) warned.
