A group of House Democrats helped pass a new resolution on Wednesday condemning President Joe Biden‘s immigration policies, making for the latest display of bipartisan disapproval of a key issue during a presidential election year.
The final tally showed 13 Democrats and 210 Republicans voted in favor of the measure, while 191 Democrats and no Republicans opposed it. Eight Democrats and seven Republicans did not vote. It follows similar votes in which some Democrats have broken ranks to approve a resolution denouncing the Biden administration’s handling of the border crisis.
This time around, the Democrats who joined Republicans were Reps. Nikki Budzinski (D-IL), Don Davis (D-NC), Yadira Caraveo (D-CO), Angie Craig (D-MN), Henry Cuellar (D-TX), Sharice Davids (D-KS), Jared Golden (D-ME), Josh Harder (D-CA), Steven Horsford (D-NV), Susie Lee (D-NV), Mary Peltola (D-AK), Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA), and Eric Sorensen (D-IL).
The resolution begins with a line that says Biden and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas “created the worst border crisis in the Nation’s history.” What follows are dozens of critiques of the administration’s record, including the “mass release of millions of illegal aliens into United States communities” and language that highlights the murder of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley allegedly by a Venezuelan illegal immigrant.
At the bottom of the measure are provisions affirming that the Biden administration “has taken executive actions that created the current border crisis.” Sections also urge the Biden administration to “rescind its open-borders policies” and “implement policies that end his administration’s border crisis.”
“The American people have had ENOUGH of President Biden’s open border nightmare,” Rep. Tony Gonzalez (R-TX), who introduced the resolution, said in a post to X. “Today, the House PASSED my legislation to hold the Biden Administration accountable for their FAILURE to protect our homeland and secure our borders.”
Border security and immigration have become top issues for Americans at a time when the backlog of asylum seekers and migrants living in the U.S. has been projected to reach more than 8 million by October. The GOP-led House voted to impeach Mayorkas over his handling of the border crisis, but the Democrat-controlled Senate dismissed the charges last month.
With the November election approaching, several of the Democrats who voted for the latest immigration resolution are considered to be in competitive races. The Cook Political Report rates the races involving Davis, Golden, and Perez as “Toss Up” contests, while some of the others are in the “Lean Democrat” or “Likely Democrat” categories.
Perez, Golden, Peltola, and Davis recently joined Vicente Gonzalez (D-TX) in a statement calling on Biden and Congress to take steps toward securing the U.S.-Mexico border after the president signed a $95 billion foreign aid package into law.
The group called on Biden “to use the authority given the executive by Congress to immediately reimplement” a section of U.S. Code geared toward returning migrants to Mexico pending court proceedings. They also urged leaders in both the House and Senate “to pass legislation to give Border Patrol back the expulsion authority that expired last year,” alluding to the pandemic-era Title 42, which allowed authorities to quickly turn away migrants at the border on public health grounds.
No comments:
Post a Comment