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Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., stated Sunday that he feels “very optimistic” about a House bipartisan caucus’ $66 billion foreign aid package deal for Ukraine, Israel and the Indo-Pacific that additionally contains border safety measures.
“I don’t want to wait — I want to act now,” Graham stated on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “I want to turn the aid package into a loan, that makes perfect sense to me. And I think the bipartisan Problem Solvers group has an idea that will sell.”
Graham added that relying on how the invoice is written, it “makes perfect sense” to him.
“I feel very optimistic after having been on the phone all weekend talking to my House colleagues that there’s a way forward on the border and Ukraine,” he stated.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., speaks with reporters about aid to Ukraine, on Capitol Hill on Thursday, March 10, 2022, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
The 30-page House proposal, launched Friday, comes as Republican lawmakers shot down any likelihood of the Senate’s $95 billion aid package deal — which Graham voted against — making it to the ground.
The invoice is designed to curtail the inflow of migrants on the southern border as officers battle to get a deal with on the disaster. It would re-up former President Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” coverage, which mandated asylum seekers to stay in Mexico whereas they await their court docket hearings, and moreover prohibits using federal funds for transferring migrants between detention facilities or different areas, besides when needed for processing their immigration circumstances.
“I think that’s a winning combination,” Graham stated of the proposal. “Let’s make it a mortgage. I believe that will get you President Trump on the aid half.”
Graham’s vote against the Senate’s foreign aid package deal final week got here as a shock to pundits, as Graham has traditionally been a staunch protection funding hawk. His vote adopted after Trump floated the thought on his Truth Social account of classifying foreign aid as a mortgage and instructed House Republicans to reject the Senate’s failed bipartisan border deal.
However, although the South Carolina Republican agreed with Trump on making the funds loans, he stated “with all due respect, we cannot wait” to safe the border.
“It’s a national security nightmare,” he stated.
BIDEN APPEARS TO CONFUSE NATO WITH UKRAINE IN CALLING FOR CONGRESS MEMBERS TO PASS FUNDING BILL
Two SUVs have been seen pulling as much as the U.S. southern border close to Jacumba, California, and unloading dozens of migrants who entered the nation illegally. (Bud Knapp / FOX Nation)
Graham’s look on “Face the Nation” comes simply days after he visited the southern border with state colleague Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C.
“The bipartisan senate bill, without the Remain in Mexico policy change, is woefully inadequate to the task at hand. Everyone we met with said going back to Remain in Mexico is a key ingredient to fixing the problem,” Graham wrote on X from Eagle Pass, Texas, on Friday. “I encourage all of my colleagues to come down here to listen and learn.”
The invoice additionally contains $47.7 billion to help Ukraine’s army protection against Russia, $10.4 billion for Israel and $4.9 billion for U.S. allies within the Indo-Pacific.
The invoice, dubbed the Defending Borders, Defending Democracies Act, is led by Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., and Jared Golden, D-Maine.
In a Dear Colleague letter on Monday, Fitzpatrick argued that the House’s invoice, not like the Senate invoice, which included humanitarian aid for Gaza, “narrows prior foreign aid proposals to critical military essentials for Ukraine and Israel.”
HOUSE REPUBLICAN INTRODUCES BILL TO REIMBURSE TEXAS THE NEARLY $4 BILLION IT SPENT TO SECURE BORDER
President Biden, proper, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy go to Saint Michael’s cathedral, amid Russia’s assault on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine, Feb. 20, 2023. (REUTERS/Gleb Garanich)
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“Congress is responsible for making the laws that govern our borders, providing resources to enforce those laws, and overseeing the federal agencies responsible for enforcement. It is a mistake to defer our responsibility to the Executive Branch, and the crisis at the border is too great to wait more than eight months for the outcome of an election,” the letter said.
“We can fulfill our duties by passing this bill to restore expulsion authority and by amending the Immigration and Nationality Act to make ‘Remain in Mexico’ a requirement, not an option. These two policies would empower the Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement to reassert order and control at our border.”
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