Border crisis: Who killed the border bill?
AUSTIN, Texas - Despite getting support from the Border Patrol union, a new bipartisan border bill is dead. Pres. Biden blames his predecessor.
"Now, all indications are this bill won't even move forward to the Senate floor. Why? A simple reason: Donald Trump," Pres. Biden said. "Because Donald Trump thinks it's bad for him politically. Therefore he doesn't even know it helps the country. He's not for it. He'd rather weaponize this issue than actually solve it."
The speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, has said that the bill would be "dead on arrival" if brought to the House. Republicans say the bill is just not strong enough in key areas.
FOX 7 Austin's Mike Warren spoke with Matt Mackowiak, chairman of the Travis County Republican Party, and Ed Espinoza, a Democratic analyst, about this issue.
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MIKE WARREN: Matt, two questions. Is Biden right about Trump, and will the electorate buy that and believe that?
MATT MACKOWIAK: I don't know how you can look at the border the last three years, if you understand that what's happening is a direct result of the executive orders that Pres. Biden has put in place, and come to any conclusion other than this is Biden's fault. It's Biden's problem. It's Biden's mess. Look, the border wasn't perfect when Trump was in office, but the illegal crossings were far, far, far lower than they are now. We're setting monthly records. We have people who've been on the terrorist watch list who've crossed over. We've had people drown in the river. The list goes on and on and on and on. And we have people getting court dates for asylum hearings in ten years. The whole system is absurd. We need to go back to the system that was working before, which had remain in Mexico in place, which ended catch and release, which was increasing our border security. That's the solution that can work. It's already passed the House. The Senate hasn't considered that. So you have a divided government. And that's why we are where we are now.
MIKE WARREN: Ed, why do you think it has taken the Biden administration so long to try and be proactive about the issues at the border?
ED ESPINOZA: Well, first of all, Mike, I disagree with that question. This bill that is in question right now has been in the works since last year. But I want to go back to your previous question. I don't know how you can look at this bill that's on the table and take Republicans seriously when they have asked for additional support at the border. They have demanded it as part of a compromise. They got it, and then they rejected it. This is not a serious party. This is Donald Trump taking to social media and telling his fellow Republicans, and I quote, "don't be stupid" in voting for this bill because Donald Trump wants to use this as an election-year issue. He doesn't care if it's resolved, and the old policy wasn't working. You had kids in cages and yet other atrocities at the border. Something needs to be done. Democrats have finally come to the table, and Republicans are still not moving forward on something they helped negotiate. Hard to take them seriously on this.
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MIKE WARREN: Matt Mackowiak, what do you think of that?
MATT MACKOWIAK: Look, the bill allowed 5,000 people to enter illegally every day. That's clearly not a serious plan. I mean, I don't see how you can come to any conclusion other than that we need operational control of the border. We need to shut illegal immigration down entirely. And once you've done that, you can talk about other things. But until the country shows it's committed to that, I don't see how you can do other things. And that's what this bill tried to do. It did try to reform the asylum process. It had money for Ukraine and Israel and Taiwan. Far more money for those things than it did for our own border and our own border security. So, look, the Democrats are losing on the immigration issue. Period. Full stop. The reason for that is that Biden's policies have been disastrous. It's been terrible in South Texas along the border. We've already had major Republican gains there in recent election cycles, and you're going to see more of that in the future. So until Biden gets serious about border security, which he's shown no interest in, nothing's going to change.
MIKE WARREN: Well, talking about getting serious, Ed. Talking about the bill itself. Obviously, there are parts of the bill that the Border Patrol union certainly likes. There are parts that the Republicans don't like. Can those things be worked out in committee? Is there still bargaining possible on this bill?
ED ESPINOZA: Well, maybe, but that assumes that they want to negotiate on this when Donald Trump has told them not to. You're right, the Border Patrol agents do support this. A bipartisan group of mayors support this. A bipartisan group of U.S. senators put this on the table, and House Republicans demanded it as part of a larger package to Ukraine as early as a month ago. And the only reason, period, full stop, that they have switched their position here is because Donald Trump wants it as an election issue. This is an example of putting party before country. It's hard to take that seriously.