US President Joe Biden has pushed Republican lawmakers to agree to the long-stalled budget compromise, promising to close the country’s southern border as soon as he is given the right to do so.
Since October, Republican lawmakers have blocked the Biden administration’s attempts to pass another $106 billion ‘national security package’ for Ukraine and Israel. They have requested that tighter security measures on the southern border be included in the accord.
“We’ve all known for too long that the border has been shattered. “It’s long past time to fix it,” Biden said in a written statement Friday.
He described the border deal, now being negotiated in the Senate, as “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,” Biden vowed.
According to the bipartisan deal, the administration would be compelled, among other things, to close the border if the number of migrants attempting to enter the US illegally on any one day surpasses 5,000, the New York Times reported. According to the report, this level has been reached “routinely” in recent months.
Finding common ground on the immigration accord would be “a win for America,” the president argued. “If you’re serious about the border crisis, pass a bipartisan bill, and I will sign it,” Biden added, addressing Republican senators.
The words were hailed as “a remarkable shift” in the Democratic president’s approach on immigration by the Washington Post. The media source emphasised “the urgency” of the border problem during his re-election campaign.
Biden’s statement came as Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson said on Friday that if the leaks about the deal’s content were accurate, it would be “dead on arrival” in the lower chamber.
