Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell believes illegal immigration will be a key issue during the 2024 presidential election.
Furthermore, the Republican from Kentucky believed the Biden administration’s record and attitude toward the crisis at the border will impede efforts to reelect President Joe Biden.
“I’m not going to criticize the House. I do think in terms of the border, it is a huge issue,” said McConnell during an interview with The Hill. “I think President Biden really mishandled this from the very beginning and I think in his race it’s going to be huge.”
House Republicans came out in locked opposition to the Emergency National Security Supplemental Appropriations Act, a $118 billion bill brokered by the Senate and the Biden administration which set aside roughly $20 billion for domestic border efforts and $90 billion for assistance for foreign countries.
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, Majority Leader Steven Scalise, GOP Majority Whip Tom Emmer, and Rep. Elisa Stefanik released a joint statement calling the bill “dead on arrival.”
“The Senate immigration bill ... fails in every policy area needed to secure our border and would actually incentivize more illegal immigration,” the statement reads. “Among its many flaws, the bill expands work authorizations for illegal aliens while failing to include critical asylum reforms. Even worse, its language allowing illegals to be ‘released from physical custody’ would effectively endorse the Biden ‘catch and release’ policy.”
“America’s sovereignty is at stake,” concluded the Republican leadership. “Any consideration of this Senate bill in its current form is a waste of time.”
The House Oversight Committee claimed the Biden administration sparked "the worst border crisis in American history and placed Americans’ lives at risk by abandoning deterrent-focused immigration policies and proven border enforcement tools" in a January report.
Even in the face of criticism from members of his party, McConnell has defended efforts to include additional foreign aid in new security bills. He told CNN on Feb. 15 that “every argument” against Ukraine aid is “wrong” and blamed opposition to the terms of the Emergency National Security Supplemental Appropriations Act on former President Donald Trump.
“I feel strongly this is in our best interest, America’s best interest and the world’s best interests to do this,” said the senator.
“Most of the money’s being spent here. Europeans have done as much, and, after the $55 billion from the EU, more than we have,” added McConnell. “Not a single American soldier has lost their lives in this fight – we’ve got a bunch of people willing to kill Russians. I can’t find any argument against this that makes any sense.”
McConnell has also avoided weighing in on the criticism of Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas. The House impeached Mayorkas by a one-vote margin on Feb. 13 after finding he had been derelict in his duty and had failed to enforce federal immigration laws.
The motion will now be sent to the Democrat-controlled Senate.
