Democratic Congressman Jared Golden (ME-02) issued a statement Monday calling upon Congress to pass the border security deal negotiated between the Senate and the Biden administration.
[RELATED: “Enforce the Immigration Laws”: Maine Democrat Lays Blame for U.S. Border Catastrophe on Biden…]
While specifics of the Senate deal have not yet been made public, President Joe Biden said Friday that legislation would be “the toughest and fairest set of reforms to secure the border we’ve ever had in our country.”
“[The legislation] would give me, as President, a new emergency authority to shut down the border when it becomes overwhelmed. And if given that authority, I would use it the day I sign the bill into law,” President Biden said.
According to reports, the pending Senate package legislation — which is likely to be tied to funding for Ukraine and Israel — would grant the Department of Homeland Security emergency authority to shut down the border if daily average illegal migrant crossing reach 4,000 in a single week.
[RELATED: Illegal Alien Encounters Continue to Increase at Both Land Borders: DHS…]
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has denounced the Senate deal as a “non-starter” due to the continued allowance of illegal border crossings.
“Any border “shutdown” authority that ALLOWS even one illegal crossing is a non-starter,” Speaker Johnson wrote on X Monday. “Thousands each day is outrageous. The number must be ZERO.”
In an earlier post, Johnson wrote that the Senate deal would “expressly allow as many as 150,000 illegal crossings each month (1.8 million per year) before any new ‘shutdown’ authority could be used.”
“At that point, America will have already been surrendered,” the House Speaker wrote.
In his Monday statement, Congressman Golden laid blame on former President Donald Trump and GOP leaders for the ongoing border crisis, accusing the Republicans of using the issue as a “campaign tool.”
“We have a divided government that was elected by the people in 2022, and nothing can be done without compromise. Unfortunately, Donald Trump and other GOP leaders have made clear they would rather continue to see an overrun border, illegal immigration, and drug trafficking than address the border crisis,” Golden said.
“They’re saying the quiet part out loud: They think border chaos is a good campaign tool against the Democrats, and they’re so determined to do nothing that they’re wasting time with a pointless, unfounded impeachment inquiry against Secretary Mayorkas instead of working on a bipartisan border deal,” Golden continued.
While Golden said the reported deal between the White House and Senate “may not be perfect,” he claimed “it would go a long way toward securing the border and slowing the flow of migrants, while ensuring our strategic allies in Israel and Ukraine have the tools they need to fend off Hamas and Putin.”
The “Blue Dog” Democrat also suggested that Speaker Johnson, if he wants the bill to be stronger, should add an amendment to the bill adding “a dollar of new border wall funding for every dollar sent to Israel and Ukraine.”
[RELATED: Maine Republican Legislators Back Texas’ Right to Defend U.S.-Mexico Border…]
Jared Golden was the only member of Maine’s congressional delegation to come out in support of Texas in their ongoing legal battle against the Biden administration over the state’s right to defend its border with Mexico.
<span class="dsq-postid" data-dsqidentifier="25054 https://www.themainewire.com/?p=25054">1 Comment
Jared Golden, a guy whose seen in every campaign commercial always proudly holding the dreaded assault rifle to give the allusion he’s a mans man, and now comes out for a ban. Now he’s blaming the border crisis on Trump? What an idiot. Chellie? any concurring comment?