Former President Trump is dismissing an emerging Senate border funding deal, calling it ineffective in securing the border and warning it would be “another gift to the Radical Left Democrats.”
“A Border Deal now would be another Gift to the Radical Left Democrats. They need it politically, but don’t care about our Border,” he said on Truth Social.
Lawmakers have been working on a deal on a White House supplemental request that includes border funding as well as aid to Ukraine and Israel. The White House had requested $14 billion in border funding, but Republicans have demanded stricter limits on asylum and releases into the interior.
Fox News Digital reported this week that the package currently being considered would include tighter language of initial credible fear standard for asylum screenings.
Republican presidential candidate, former U.S. President Donald Trump points to supporters at the conclusion of a campaign rally at the Atkinson Country Club on January 16, 2024 in Atkinson, New Hampshire. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
Linked to that would be a Title 42-style expulsion authority to quickly remove migrants at the border similar to the COVID-19-era authority. Multiple sources said that the use of that authority would be mandated only if there was a 7-day rolling average of above 5,000 encounters a day. Encounters above 4,000 would be discretionary and a single day with over 8,000 encounters would trigger the expulsions.
The bill would also limit the use of humanitarian parole at the border, cut the wait time for work permits, grant work permits to children of temporary visa holders who turn 21 and increase ICE detention.
While the provisions of the bill are still fluid, negotiators have said they are hoping to have a bill text soon.
But details of the package have sparked anger from conservatives, who say it doesn’t do enough to secure the border and accepts a high number of releases into the interior as a new normal. It is also unlikely to pass the House, where Republicans have demanded the entirety of H.R. 2 — the Republican border legislation from last year.
Trump said that what is currently being worked on in the Senate “will be meaningless in terms of Border Security and Closure.”
The former president, who is the front-runner for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, says there is only one solution to the border crisis — to elect him to the White House.
Fox News drone video shows group of about 2,200 migrants who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border to Eagle Pass, Texas. (Fox News)
“Four years ago we had the Safest and Most Secure Border in the History of our Country, and now we have the WORST, probably anywhere in the World. In any event, if you want to have a really Secure Border, your ONLY HOPE is to vote for TRUMP2024!” he said.
His criticism echoes that coming from some Republicans in the Senate who held a press conference this week to lambaste the package.
“[This bill] is a kamikaze plane in a box canyon with no exits headed for a train wreck,” Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas said at a press conference, later calling it a “stinking pile of crap bill.”
But Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., one of the main negotiators of the package, told Fox News this week that they were trying to get “as much done as we can” given the border crisis and what he sees as a refusal from Democrats to act.
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“I have a Democrat Senate that hasn’t wanted to deal with this, has refused to even have hearings on these issues for the last three years as the whole country watches the chaos,” he said. “The Democrat-led Senate has just ignored it the whole time. I’ve got a president that says, ‘hey, it’s not my fault’ when everyone knows it is his fault. This has not ever happened under any other president, ever. So we’re trying to put things into place to make sure this never, ever happens again. And then we can make sure in the days ahead that the authorities are there, no matter who is president, that we have control of the border.”
Fox News’ Aishah Hasnie contributed to this report.
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