The Biden administration is reportedly trying to compromise with House Republicans on border issues in exchange for more military funding for Ukraine.
According to people familiar with the discussions, the White House and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) are considering doing more asylum reform to appease Republican lawmakers and get their funding through.
Biden now trying to extort billions from American citizens over an invasion he createdhttps://t.co/Eo7unQQm37
— 🇺🇲Salty Texan (@texan_maga) November 3, 2023
The source told Politico that the administration’s openness to asylum reform “was a huge substantive risk, and political one,” warning that it “could get ugly.”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre confirmed last week that President Joe Biden wants Congress to move forward with his supplemental requests in order to manage border security needs.
“We’ve been very clear, if Republicans are serious about dealing with border security, this is something that they should move forward with — easily. Easily. But what we’ve seen them do over and over again is play political games,” Jean-Pierre said during a press briefing.
Democrats, however, may oppose the change. Another source said that the White House is bracing for criticism from immigration advocates should the administration proceed with the plan without advancing other efforts like the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.
While the Democratic-led White House and House Republicans work to get their funding packages through, mayors of Chicago, Denver, Houston, and Los Angeles met with Tom Perez, the director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, to request additional funding to address the immigrant crisis that has overwhelmed their cities.
The Democratic mayors, Eric Adams of New York City among them, offered to travel to Washington, D.C., in order to force an “urgent” meeting with Biden to discuss the crisis that has left cities lacking the means to accommodate the flood of immigrants.
“It’s pretty hard to ignore when both parties in Congress, the White House and mayors from major cities all agree that there needs to be resources and changes with regard to how we manage migration,” a former administration official told the news outlet.
“But where it quickly breaks down is what does that look like? And what are the specific policy changes?” the official continued.
