by Sharon Rondeau
(Jan. 31, 2023) — In a scathing op-ed in The Hill on Tuesday, U.S. Senator from Florida Rick Scott accused fellow Republican and current Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of advancing a “plan to give Biden and Democrats a win that they can campaign on” in regard to a much-touted border security bill which also contains additional funding for the Ukraine-Russia war.
In addition to helping Democrats, Scott claimed in his column, McConnell “is preserving a Republican Party in Washington that has completely lost touch with our voters and the real world” and, along with “the Washington establishment,” has “undermined Republican voters for years.”
Scott was particularly focused on the bill arising in the upper congressional chamber which, if passed, would reportedly “give the executive branch a new legal authority to effectively suspend asylum in between official ports of entry when migrant crossings surpass certain thresholds.”
That newfound “legal authority” in the bill, CBS News reported Sunday, “would be mandated after average daily migrant crossings hit 5,000 over seven days, or 8,500 in a single day. It could also be activated on a discretionary basis after average daily crossings surpass 4,000 in a week. There would also be a limit on the number of days each year the president could invoke the authority.”
Joe Biden said in a January 26 press statement that he asked a White House “team” to work with the Senate “to seriously, and finally, address the border crisis.”
“For weeks now that’s what they’ve done,” the statement reads. “Working around the clock, through the holidays, and over weekends…
“What’s been negotiated would – if passed into law – be the toughest and fairest set of reforms to secure the border we’ve ever had in our country.
“It would give me, as President, a new emergency authority to shut down the border when it becomes overwhelmed. And if given that authority, I would use it the day I sign the bill into law.”
Some have questioned why Biden claims to need congressional approval to take action on the border crisis when on his first day in office, he revoked Executive Order 13768, signed in January 2017 by President Donald Trump, with a purpose “to direct executive departments and agencies (agencies) to employ all lawful means to enforce the immigration laws of the United States.”
According to Scott, the anticipated bill’s contents are as yet undisclosed, with McConnell keeping the details closely-guarded. ”We haven’t seen any text and the little that McConnell has told us is that this is a massive check for Ukraine, and no border security until we get a Republican president,” Scott wrote in his column. “Most Republicans and even some Democrats are for accountability in Ukraine spending and real border security. Neither are in this bill, according to McConnell.”
Further, Scott accused “The Democrats, and some Republicans who claim that President Trump or anyone else wants the border crisis to continue because it’s good politics” of purveying “lies” which he said are rejected by American voters and “entertained” solely in the nation’s capital, “where commonsense [sic] doesn’t exist.”
Biden reportedly has requested $61 billion more for Ukraine on an “urgent” basis to “fight Russia’s invasion” of nearly two years ago.
According to CNN in late December, the Ukrainian military has been beset by “a number of corruption scandals” sourced to official statements from Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky last year which led to multiple firings at “military registration and enlistment offices” and 112 prosecutions.
On Monday, Breitbart News reported that according to a Ukrainian spokesperson, “The $113 billion sent to Ukraine so far for its war against Russia is apparently not actually going to Ukraine, but is really ‘benefiting American interests.’”
“The shock claim was in response to a request for information by Breitbart News on whether or not any American tax dollars had gone specifically to Uman, a city in the war-torn Eastern European nation that is currently seeing a condo built on a Jewish mass grave, as previously reported, in violation of a bilateral agreement with the U.S., and in violation of international law,” the article details.
Former President and Republican 2024 presidential frontrunner Donald J. Trump has criticized the Senate’s border proposal, insisting on Wednesday another piece of legislation is unnecessary to enforce immigration law and national security, a bulwark of his 2016 presidential campaign, term in office and current campaign.
“Close the Border, you do not need a ridiculous Border Bill that will allow 5000 people into our Country a day,” Trump wrote on TruthSocial Wednesday morning. “Call it the ‘Stupid Bill’ and make sure it doesn’t get passed. It will make things MUCH WORSE. CLOSE THE SOUTHERN BORDER, NO BILL NECESSARY!!!”
Scott agreed. “Securing the border requires forcing Biden to enforce the law,” he wrote in his column. “Nothing we have seen over the past three years suggests he will do that. That’s why McConnell’s plan to give Biden and Democrats a win that they can campaign on and claim they’re working to solve the border crisis is a joke.”
On Tuesday ABC News reported Trump’s remarks as “meddling,” stating the former president could jettison the “rare bipartisan deal,” according to “key Republicans expressing concern.”
However, the outlet concurred with Scott on the point that “many congressional Republicans” “haven’t even seen the bill.”
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson has said the Senate bill will be “dead on arrival” should it pass and make its way to the lower chamber.
In closing his op-ed, Scott assigned responsibility for “a failure to get something done to secure the border, or provide lethal aid to Ukraine, Israel or Taiwan” on McConnell, who he said is “totally disconnected with our voters and who would rather pass anything for Ukraine than actually secure our border.”
In response to Scott’s column, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) wrote on “X” that “Senate GOP leadership should focus on securing the border and uniting the Senate GOP—not blaming Senate Republicans reluctant to pass a bill they’ve never seen, but that (according to leaked details) could weaken border security.”
On Sunday, Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, one of the architects of the bill, said he sees Republicans as “against border and immigration reform because they are afraid it’s actually going to pass, and many Republicans in the House and some in the Senate actually have no plans to help the president control the border because they want to keep the border in a chaotic situation for political purposes.”
On Sunday Sen. James Lankford, another architect of the bill and an Oklahoma Republican, confirmed on “Face the Nation” that as of then, the text of the proposal had not been distributed but that “misinformation” was driving some to reject it out of hand.
After a public “markup” Tuesday, on Wednesday morning the House Homeland Security Committee approved two Articles of Impeachment against DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas accusing him of having “repeatedly violated laws enacted by Congress regarding immigration and border security. In large part because of his unlawful conduct, millions of aliens have illegally entered the United States on an annual basis with many unlawfully remaining in the United States. His refusal to obey the law is not only an offense against the separation of powers in the Constitution of the United States, it also threatens our national
security and has had a dire impact on communities across the country.”