U.S. Republicans will not support a White House aid package for Ukraine unless the United States border with Mexico is secured. U.S. Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson called the situation at the border a “national security and humanitarian catastrophe” after meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden and other lawmakers in Washington on Wednesday, January 17th.
Biden has for months demanded that Congress approve $61.4 billion in additional funding to help supply Ukraine with weapons as part of a “supplemental” request that also includes $14.3 billion for Israel and $13.6 billion for border protection.
While there is clear bipartisan support for Israel, Republicans are increasingly sceptical of funding Ukraine, because the war has reached a stalemate, with neither the Ukrainian nor the Russian troops making any significant advances.
“What is the endgame and the strategy in Ukraine? How will we have accountability for the funds? We need to know that Ukraine will not be another Afghanistan,” Johnson told reporters ahead of his meeting with Biden. The U.S. has given Ukraine $79 billion in military, financial, and humanitarian aid to Ukraine since the Russian invasion almost two years ago.
Though Johnson described the meeting as “productive,” he insisted that Biden needed to do more on migration, adding:
We understand that there’s concern about the safety, security and sovereignty of Ukraine, but the American people have those same concerns about our own domestic sovereignty and our safety and our security.
Since Democrat Joe Biden came into office almost three years ago, the number of illegal immigrants entering the U.S. from Mexico has massively increased, which Republicans attribute to lax asylum policies. According to data from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the number of arrests made at the border skyrocketed in the first fiscal year (ending in September 2021) of Biden’s presidency: it grew to 1.66 million compared to the final fiscal year of former President Donald Trump, when there were 405,000 apprehensions. The situation has only worsened since, with a record-breaking 2.2 million arrests in 2022 and 2 million in 2023.
Republicans believe Biden has encouraged migration with policies that allow certain migrants to enter legally for humanitarian reasons. The House of Representatives—where Republicans hold a majority—passed a bill last May that would set tight limits on asylum seekers and require them to apply for U.S. protection outside the country. It also would resume construction of a wall along the border and expand federal law enforcement efforts. The Senate has still not debated the bill but will surely reject it, as Democrats have a majority there.
The Democrats themselves are willing to increase the number of border patrol agents and asylum officers, but Republicans say the bulk of the money for border protection would be used to manage border arrivals, instead of discouraging illegal immigration.
The issue will certainly influence the outcome of the presidential election in November, and Biden and Trump will likely be their parties’ nominees in a rerun of the 2020 election. According to a poll by CBS News, 45% of voters think the situation at the border is a crisis, 30% believe it is a very serious issue, 18% say it is somewhat serious, and only 7% say it is not a problem at all.
Meanwhile, Biden has warned Republicans that blocking vital U.S. military aid for Ukraine “endangers the United States’ national security, the NATO alliance, and the rest of the free world.”
