The White House has begun holding the hands of open-borders activists and members of Congress, asking them not to panic as the Biden Administration admits that they cannot continue to allow hundreds of thousands of migrants to pour into the country every month.
Politico reports that “in calls with those lawmakers and advocates in recent weeks, officials from the White House and Department of Homeland Security floated potential changes as a means of winning over Republicans opposed to aid for Ukraine, according to four people familiar with the talks.
The outreach illustrates how challenging the coming days will be for the White House as it tries to move a $106 billion supplemental aid package that includes money for Ukraine, Israel, the southern border and Taiwan. Republicans have insisted that any large-scale plan include border policy changes as well. In the process, they have placed a political lighting rod of an issue squarely into the biggest legislative matter before Congress — and forced the White House to balance competing interests.
A former administration official familiar with the discussions, who was granted anonymity to discuss private conversations, said the White House’s openness to asylum reform “was a huge substantive risk, and political one.”
“It could get ugly,” the person added.
Earlier in the week, the mayors of some of the most Democratic cities in the country, including Chicago, Denver, Houston, and Los Angeles, met with Joe Biden to beg for federal assistance in helping them deal with migrants, some of whom have received free transportation from the border to big cities from Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. They told the president that illegal immigrants have come to their cities with almost no coordination or support from his administration.
The position between big city Democrats and the open border left puts Biden in the tough decision of having to choose whether to embrace reality or continue to stay beholden to the activist class, who has already become enraged by some actions taken by the White House to try and stem the border and feel betrayed.
In July, despite running on the campaign promise not to continue the construction of Trump’s border wall, the White House announced new plans to finish what his predecessor started.
NBC wrote that the president “authorized completion of the Trump-funded U.S.-Mexico border wall in an open area of southern Arizona near Yuma, where four wide gaps make it among the busiest corridors for illegal crossings.
The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that the work to complete the project near the Morelos Dam will better protect migrants who can get hurt slipping down a slope or drown walking through a low section of the Colorado River.
Completion of the wall was at the top of former President Donald Trump’s agenda, and border security remains a potent issue for candidates of both parties going into this year’s primary elections. President Joe Biden halted new wall construction after he took office, but he has since made closing the gaps just south of Yuma a priority.”
The president might have the choice made for him. This week, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson said that Republicans plan to link to U.S. border security to any future funding for Ukraine in its war against Russia.
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