One day after House Republicans visited the U.S.-Mexico border to pressure President Joe Biden and Democrats on immigration reform, a key immigration official urged Congress to pass much-needed funding to shore up border security.
“The challenges we’ve been seeing on our border are the result of a broken immigration and asylum system that hasn't been updated in decades since the 1990s by the U.S. Congress,” Blas Nuñez-Neto, Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Border and Immigration Policy, said in an interview with Spectrum News on Thursday, also blaming “an endemic lack of funding for key parts of the immigration continuum, including our men and women on the front lines, our ports of entry [and] our asylum officers in the immigration court system.”
“We welcome the bipartisan negotiations that are taking place in the Senate, and really urge the House majority in particular to work on a bipartisan basis to come up with solutions to these problems, instead of, frankly, just playing politics with what has been a very difficult policy challenge for this country,” he added.
Nuñez-Neto’s comments come as negotiations between Senate lawmakers continue on enacting border policy changes in exchange for unlocking Republican support for President Joe Biden’s $106 billion national security request, which includes aid to Israel and Ukraine in their respective wars abroad. Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, the lead Democratic negotiator in the border talks, confirmed that the meetings would take place remotely.
The interview also comes amid a recent spike in migrants attempting to cross the border in recent weeks, though those numbers have started to come down in recent days. The number of illegal crossings topped 10,000 several days last month, but fell to roughly 2,500 on Monday. Similarly, while authorities closed some border and rail crossings last month when Customs and Border Protection officials were overwhelmed, those crossings have reopened.
Nuñez-Neto emphasized that the Biden administration is enforcing existing immigration laws, pointing to the removal of more than 460,000 people encountered at the border since mid-May, when a Trump-era pandemic restriction ended. He also made the case that migration isn’t a challenge unique to the U.S., but one happening all over the world.
“There are more people displaced from their countries and on the move today, than at any other point since World War II,” he said. "You're seeing our colleagues in Europe taking some significant steps in recent weeks to try to address what they are seeing on their borders … their steps involve legislation, and there is really no long-lasting solution for us in this country that does not involve legislation in Congress doing its job.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., on Wednesday led a group of more than 60 members of his Republican conference to Eagle Pass, Texas, which borders Mexico. The group toured the Eagle Pass port of entry and held a press conference where they laid the blame at President Joe Biden’s feet for a record surge in migrant crossings and demanded hard-line border restrictions.
“One thing is absolutely clear: America is at a breaking point with record levels of illegal immigration and today we got a firsthand look at the damage and the chaos the border catastrophe is causing in all of our communities,” the Louisiana Republican said Wednesday during a news conference. “The situation here and across the country is truly unconscionable.”
Johnson urged lawmakers to enact H.R. 2, a bill which passed the House without a single vote of Democratic support and would bring back several restrictive border policies put in place by former President Donald Trump.
Of any compromise bill that might come out of the Senate, Johnson said: “If it looks like H.R. 2, we'll talk about it.”
The White House accused House Republicans of “playing politics” with their trip to the border instead of remaining in Washington to try and hash out a bipartisan solution.
“House Republicans decided to vote on a bill that would cut 2,000 border patrol agents at the border,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Thursday. “Thats what they did … and they continue to obstruct and get in the way of the president wanting to move forward with the supplemental that includes border security.”
“While Senate Republicans and Democrats in a bipartisan way are trying to find a way, a bipartisan agreement to deal with border security, you have House Republicans who left in the middle of December,” she added. "I think they come back next week, maybe they will get some work done. Instead, they are playing politics.”
Nuñez-Neto told Spectrum News that he hopes Speaker Johnson saw on his trip “how desperately needed those funds are to support our men and women on the front lines” and urged lawmakers in both chambers of Congress “to come together on a bipartisan basis to come up with a solution here.”
Without getting into the specifics of the talks, Nuñez-Neto said that Senate negotiators appear to be “making progress” while urging the House to “try to work on a bipartisan basis to come up with solutions.”
“This is one of the most challenging policy issues the country faces today, and neither party can solve this problem on their own,” Nuñez-Neto said. “We really do need both parties to come together in both chambers of Congress to address this in a meaningful way.”
Jean-Pierre appeared to agree with Nuñez-Neto on the state of talks in the Senate, telling reporters that “we think we're headed in the right direction” while thanking negotiators for their efforts.
“We're gonna have a real conversation where the negotiation is actually happening in good faith with both Democrats and Republicans in the Senate,” she added.