Speaker Mike Johnson and a group of House Republicans are visiting the U.S.-Mexico border this week, kicking off 2024 focused on a key issue for the GOP as negotiations over border policy changes tied to unlocking President Joe Biden’s national security funding request stretch into a new year. 

What You Need To Know

  • Speaker Mike Johnson and a group of House Republicans are visiting the border in Texas this week, kicking off 2024 focused on a key issue for the GOP
  • Negotiations over border policy changes tied to unlocking President Joe Biden’s national security supplemental request are continuing into the new year
  • White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called the border conversations productive in an interview with ABC News on Tuesday 
  • Even if negotiators are able to work out a deal that can pass the Senate, its future is uncertain in the GOP-controlled House

About 60 House Republicans are expected to join Johnson on the trip, Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales, whose district in Texas includes hundreds of miles of the U.S.-Mexico border, said in an interview with CNN on Tuesday.

The two-day voyage will start in San Antonio on Tuesday night where the group will hear from border patrol’s second-in-charge, Gonzales said. The House Republicans will then head to Eagle Pass on Wednesday. 

"The goal is for House Republicans to be focused on solutions towards the border as we get in the '24 year and we start to ... tackle some of these legislative priorities," Gonzales said.

But the Biden administration was critical of the trip, slamming House Republicans for leaving Washington last month while the White House and Senate Democrats and Republicans stayed behind to try and broker a bipartisan compromise on border policy.

"Right now, instead of joining the Biden Administration and members of both parties in the Senate to find common ground, Speaker Johnson is continuing to block President Biden’s proposed funding to hire thousands of new Border Patrol agents, hire more asylum officers and immigration judges, provide local communities hosting migrants additional grant funding, and invest in cutting edge technology that is critical to stopping deadly fentanyl from entering our country," White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates said in a statement Wednesday morning.

Bates also sought to make the case that House Republicans for making the situation at the U.S.-Mexico border worse, charging that they have "obstructed his reform proposal and consistently voted against his unprecedented border security funding year after year, hamstringing our border security in the name of extreme, partisan demands."

"Actions speak louder than words," he said. "House Republicans’ anti-border security record is defined by attempting to cut Customs and Border Protection personnel, opposing President Biden’s record-breaking border security funding, and refusing to take up the President’s supplemental funding request.”   

It comes as talks – that started well before Congress’ holiday break – over the sticky subject of changes to U.S. border policy are heading into a fresh year. The top negotiators from a bipartisan group of senators tasked with leading the talks, Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy, Republican Sen. James Lankford and Independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, returned to the nation’s capital on Tuesday to continue negotiations, CNN reported. 

Republicans insist any additional U.S. assistance to Ukraine must be accompanied by meaningful changes to U.S. border policy and the overall fate of Biden’s request for billions of dollars in aid to Kyiv amid Russia’s invasion, Israel as it battles Hamas, the Indo-Pacific as China exerts its influence in the region and the border has become tied to the delicate negotiations. 

On behalf of the White House, which stepped up its participation in the border talks shortly before Congress left for the holiday break last month, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called the conversations “productive” in an interview with ABC News on Tuesday. 

“What we hope is that when Congress gets back, we’ll be able to act and get these things moving forward so we can deal with this issue,” Jean-Pierre added in a separate interview with CNN on Tuesday morning. The full Senate is expected to return next week. 

For his part, Biden has said he is willing to make “significant compromises” on the border as he warns of the ramifications of the U.S. backing out of support for Kyiv. 

But even if negotiators are able to work out a deal that can pass the Senate, its future is uncertain in the GOP-controlled House, which may demand more significant changes. 

“I think if the Senate can get to 60 in a meaningful way, that would send a powerful message that the House couldn’t just set aside,” Gonzales said on CNN on Tuesday, referring to the vote-threshold in the upper chamber.  “But be very clear, there has to be meaningful border solutions that can’t be window dressing.” 

Gonzales added while there is an “opportunity to get something passed,” negotiators are “a ways from getting to a framework and real ways to getting to more specifics on it.” 

"The devil is always in the details,” he said.  

The situation at the U.S.-Mexico border has become a go-to line of attack for House Republicans against the Democratic president as the U.S. grapples with a record surge in migrants at the southern border. 

But Biden has also faced pressure to do more on the issue from some within his own party, as Democratic governors and mayors plead for more federal help in addressing the influx of migrants arriving in their cities. 

Last week, Biden sent a U.S. delegation which included Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas to Mexico City for a sit-down with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. The two sides emerged pledging to continue dialogue on the topic and work on addressing the root causes of migration.