Biden, media frustrated as GOP stands in opposition to controversial border funding bill

Despite mounting pressure from Democrats and liberal media outlets, Republicans in Congress are standing firm in their opposition to a $14 billion Biden plan critics say will help the administration conceal the depth of the border crisis as the 2024 campaign heats up, as Breitbart reports.

Articulating his rationale for what is being referred to as an “Emergency Supplemental” request, President Joe Biden said of lawmakers, “They ought to give me the money – I need to protect the border.”

Speaker sets record straight

Biden's newfound sense of urgency to “do something” to quell the unprecedented influx of migrants at the border appears to many as rather disingenuous, with House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) seemingly among them.

According to Johnson, the bill Biden is pushing will serve not to halt, but rather to hasten the flow of migrants into the country over the course of the next 12 months.

Speaking to CNN's Jake Tapper earlier this month, Johnson said, “What the White House is proposing is more money to process and allow more illegals into the country.”

“We need to do the opposite of that,” Johnson added.

Jessica Vaughan of the Immigration Accountability Project concurs with Johnson's take, saying that the $14 billion request would have the effect of quietly smuggling large number of migrants into the interior in 2024 and would provide the necessary resources to buy the silence of big-city mayors who have sounded the alarm about unsustainable volumes of arrivals.

Johnson's own office released a report on Jan. 5 noting that of the billions being sought by Biden, less than 17% would be directed toward actual Border Patrol operations, with most being spent on crisis mitigation that does not address security and enforcement needs, but just facilitates easier and faster processing of larger numbers of migrants.

Criticism mounts

Though Democrats and mainstream journalists have been trumpeting Biden's request as a legislative imperative not to be ignored, a rising chorus of critics has entered the public discourse to point out just how ill-advised and dishonest the concept truly is.

Fox News contributor and New York Post reporter Miranda Devine said, “Oh yea, more money. But not to 'protect the border.' It's to pay for more lawyers to lie for the illegal migrants posing as asylum seekers. It's to pay for more NGOs to continue the cartel's human trafficking work around the country. It's to pay for more 'humanitarian' aid at the border, and more money wasted on 'root cause' boondoggles. Anything but secure the border.”

Devine added, “It doesn't take more money to do that. Just the political will. [Biden] can close [the border] tomorrow if he wants. He has enough new Biden voters now anyway.”

Turning the president's words right back on him, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) quipped, “Yes, Biden's 'gotta do something' – or Congress won't fund the government,” but whether that threat is one that lawmakers will support with real actions, only time will tell.