House Republicans Say Speaker Is Right to Doubt Unpublished Senate Border Deal

Several Republican House members are standing by comments House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has offered in recent days, declaring a tentative Senate border security agreement would be dead on arrival in the House if rumors about its contents prove accurate.

The actual text of the Senate agreement has not yet been released, but rumors about some of the deal’s provisions have circulated throughout Capitol Hill and many Republicans in both houses of Congress haven’t liked what they’ve heard.

Asked if it’s wrong to weigh in against the border deal without the actual text, Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) told NTD News that even the basic outline of the deal members of Congress have heard make it dead on arrival.

“We’ve already seen the outline from the Senate, and the basic outline, which is now widely reported, is that it allows for 5,000 entrants per day,” Mr. Donalds said Thursday. “That’s just, that’s a non-starter. I don’t even know why the Senate thinks that’s a starter. It’s just wrongheaded policy out of the Senate, terrible negotiations out of the Senate. So I think the speaker is right to reject it.”

One purported aspect of the Senate deal allows for U.S. border officials to close down the border if they encounter a daily average of 5,000 people across the span of a week.

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“Thousands each day is outrageous. The number must be ZERO,” Mr. Johnson wrote.

GOP Senate Negotiator Says Unreleased Bill Language Misinterpreted

When asked about Mr. Johnson’s decision to weigh in before the Senate deal is released, Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.) said the House speaker was likely expressing concerns about the 5,000 daily crossings figure and the thought that those border crossers could be released into the United States.

“I think what [Mr. Johnson’s] going off of is the fact that they want to allow 1.8 million individuals to still come into the country,” Ms. Malliotakis told NTD News.

Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), the lead Republican negotiator on the Senate deal, has insisted that the portion of the tentative deal describing up to 5,000 daily border encounters has been widely misunderstood.

In an interview with Fox News this past weekend, Mr. Lankford said his critics are interpreting that 5,000 daily figure in the context of the Biden administration’s policies of releasing people into the United States through parole programs. He said the 5,000 figure instead represents the number of people that U.S. border officials should be able to detain and process for removal.

“We’re focused on how many people can we process quickly and then deport out of the country, not release into the country,” Mr. Lankford told Fox News. “It would be absolutely absurd for anyone to be able to propose something to say we’re just going to slow the number of releases.”

Mr. Lankford said disagreements over the final wording have prevented him from being able to share the precise language with his colleagues.

It remains to be seen whether the deal Mr. Lankford is negotiating will be published, whether it will allow U.S. border officials to continue to release illegal immigrants into the United States, and what actions it will prescribe when there are rolling daily averages of 5,000 encounters at the border.

Rep. Marc Molinaro (R-N.Y.) said Senate negotiators got ahead of themselves by promoting the tentative border deal without being prepared to share the text.

“I think that it’s a miscalculation on the Senate’s part to be selling something they’ve yet to actually print,” he told NTD News.

Malliotakis: Senate Bill Could Be Starting Point But House GOP Should Make Changes

Ms. Malliotakis said the Senate’s proposal could provide a starting point for negotiations, but that House Republicans have their own terms for the border agreement that they will want to ensure are included.

“I think we should certainly look at what the bill text is. I think that potentially, if the Senate passes it, that should be a starting point for negotiation,” she told NTD News on Thursday. “But we’re not going to take up their bill as is without including any of our priorities from the Border Security Act that actually would secure the border.

Last year, the Republican-controlled House passed a bill called the “Secure the Border Act,” which entailed resuming wall construction along the U.S. southern border and limiting eligibility to claim asylum or to be temporarily released into the United States under parole programs. Numerous Republicans have insisted on passage of the Secure the Border Act or equivalent language in the border deal currently being negotiated.

Some Republicans have argued that even without new legislation, President Joe Biden could already take executive actions to deliver some of the border security demands Republicans have been seeking. Mr. Molinaro suggested action now by the president could pave the way for a later legislative breakthrough.

“Right now, the best I think approach is for the president to take meaningful action to secure the border,” Mr. Molinaro said. “He can do that under the law. That would open the door, I think, to much more conversation, but the President doesn’t seem to want to take it seriously.”

On Monday, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre insisted the Senate deal would encompass the Biden administration’s border security requests and give the president “new emergency authority to secure our border when it becomes overwhelmed.” The White House press secretary put the responsibility on the House side to make those things happen.