House Speaker Mike Johnson discussed the new Senate bipartisan bill that would completely overhaul the immigration system in a statement on Sunday night. According to Johnson, the bill is dead on arrival if it makes it to the House.
“I’ve seen enough. This bill is even worse than we expected and won’t come close to ending the border catastrophe the President has created. As the lead Democrat negotiator proclaimed: Under this legislation, “the border never closes.” If this bill reaches the House, it will be dead on arrival,” Johnson said in a statement on X.
The statement from Johnson came just hours after the text of the bill dropped.
The Senate had spent months working on the bill in a bipartisan manner, but now, will be laid to waste as soon as it arrives in the House, as House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said the legislation would not even receive a vote.
The bill includes millions of dollars in new foreign aid and the first major overhaul of the country’s immigration system in years, addressing border concerns that the GOP had been arguing needed addressing for months.
However, Scalise said in a statement on X that the bill was not what it was promoted to be.
“Let me be clear: The Senate Border Bill will NOT receive a vote in the House. Here’s what the people pushing this ‘deal’ aren’t telling you: It accepts 5,000 illegal immigrants a day and gives automatic work permits to asylum recipients—a magnet for more illegal immigration,” Scalise said.
Up and down the Republican party, representatives shared their displeasure with the bill, including GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, who described the legislation as the “Joe Biden/Chuck Schumer Open Border Bill.”
GOP Whip Tom Emmer of Minnesotan also said he didn’t support the Senate bill, calling for all illegal immigration to be stopped.
“I’ll say it again: Any deal from the Senate that explicitly allows for even ONE illegal crossing will be dead on arrival in the House. What we’ve seen is an insult to the American people who’ve been forced to bear the consequences of Democrats’ open-border policies,” Emmer said in a statement on X.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell endorsed the bill saying, “I am grateful to Senator Lankford for working tirelessly to ensure that supplemental national security legislation begins with direct and immediate solutions to the crisis at our southern border.”
He went on to say that the nation’s sovereignty was “being tested” and that the challenges the nation faces “will not resolve themselves, nor will our adversaries wait for America to muster the resolve to meet them. The Senate must carefully consider the opportunity in front of us and prepare to act.”