Today, Senate Republicans celebrated a rare victory after shutting down what Glenn has called a "multi-billion dollar war package" disguised as a "border deal." The question as to whether the inept GOP leadership under Mitch McConnell can negotiate a meaningful border package is still to be seen. However, there is a task at hand: to fight Democrat-led propaganda accusing the conservatives of sensationalized partisan theater.
Democrats say the fact that their Republican colleagues shot down the border deal proves that they don't actually care about the border at all. Instead, they say, Republicans are using the border to play partisan politics ahead of the 2024 election. As Glenn says, there's a reason why Senate and House leadership give Congress only a few days to review a 370-page bill. If the American people had enough time to read the entirety of the bill, they would see clearly that this is anything but a border package.
Thankfully for you, you don't have to read all 370 pages of the border bill. Here is everything in the "not-so-border" bill so you call out the Democrats' propaganda.
More than HALF of the bill's funds would go to Ukraine.
Out of the $118 billion bill, $60 billion would have gone to Ukraine. How fitting of the Democrats to accuse Republicans of partisan politics when they delegated a majority of the funds of a "border" package to their own partisan issue.
You would think that the Senate Democrats would delegate the other half of the bill to border security to at least tempt the consideration of their hardline Republican colleagues... think again.
Only ONE SIXTH of the bill's funds would go towards border security.
Not even half of the "border" bill would have gone towards border security. Out of the $118 billion bill, only $20 billion would have gone toward securing the border. That's one-third of the amount allotted for Ukrainian aid.
The bill would have allowed 1.8 MILLION illegal immigrants to enter the country every year.
Not only did the Senate "border" package fail to fund any meaningful border reform, but moreover, the mandates within the bill itself would have accomplished nothing to stop the border crisis.
The "border" bill would have allowed the Department of Homeland Security to "nearly shut down the border." What does "nearly shutting down the border" actually entail? In short, DHS would have been able to allow a maximum average of 5,000 migrants per day on a given week. At that rate, up to 1.8 million illegal immigrants would enter the country every year.
There have been an estimated 6-10 million illegal immigrants who have entered the U.S. under the Biden administration over the past 3 years. Assuming the lower estimate, that is an average of 2 million illegal immigrants per year. That means that the "border" bill would have done nothing to stop the migrant crisis.
There's a provision in his bill that would allow the president to suspend the shutdown authority.
In addition to the bill's abject failure to curb the border crisis, it would have given Biden a loophole to suspend all border restrictions within the bill. The bill included a provision that would have authorized the president to suspend the border emergency on an emergency basis." The suspension would last up to 45 days and could be invoked repeatedly in perpetuity.
So the President could suspend the border emergency in case of...another emergency? If your eyebrows are raised, they should be.
Theoretically, the bill would have enabled Biden to suspend all the "restrictions" within the bill to border crisis if he declared a separate "state of emergency." It's not as if the presidents have been known to invoke emergency powers to impose their own agenda before...
The bill would also send $14 billion in security assistance to Israel and $10 billion to Gaza.
Ukraine isn't the only beneficiary of the so-called "border" bill. The package would have given an additional $14 billion to Israel and $10 billion to Gaza... just to be fair. As much as Glenn is in favor of supporting Israel, it shouldn't come at the expense of funding the war effort in Gaza, particularly in a U.S. border security package.
Almost $5 billion to support key regional partners in the Indo-Pacific to deter China.
The Senate couldn't neglect Taiwan as well. Apparently funding "national security interests" in the Indo-Pacific region is crucial to fixing the crisis at the U.S. southern border.
$2.5 billion dollars to support U.S. Central Command operations in the Red Sea.
Giving the U.S. military additional funds to fight the Iranian-backed Houthis in the Red Sea benefits the U.S. border security... how?
$2.3 billion for Ukrainians and other displaced refugees.
Instead of allocating additional funds to help families who have been directly affected by the border crisis, an additional $2.3 billion would have been given to displaced foreign refugees.
$400 million for the nonprofit security grant program.
This grant program apparently funds nonprofits that enable places of worship to "make security enhancements." As much as we would like places of worship to remain safe and secure, why this obscure grant program is included in a "border" bill is a head-scratcher.
