In a statement issued from the White House Friday night, President Joe Biden pledged to his Republican “colleagues” that he would “shut down” the US-Mexico border if Republicans helped pass a $110 billion supplemental funding package. Biden’s statement was released two days after Texas Governor Greg Abbott declared that migrants seeking asylum constituted an “invasion” of his state and justified his usurpation of federal authority over the border.
President Joe Biden speaks to the media before boarding Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House, Thursday, Jan. 18, 2024.
The supplemental war package has been languishing since October due to Republican objections that the bill, which includes over $61 billion in funding for the proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, does not include sufficiently brutal attacks on immigrants, including reinstitution of Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy and virtual elimination of the right to asylum.
The supplemental funding bill also provides $14.5 billion for Israel, $14 billion for border security and billions more for military aid to Taiwan and other South Asian regimes aligned with the US against China.
In a bid for Republican support for the war package, Biden has already carried out more deportations in the last year than Trump did in 2019, and he has resumed building portions of Trump’s border wall.
In response to Trump’s opposition to any border deal with Biden and the Democrats, seconded by Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, Biden has now adopted the language of the fascist ex-president and declared that he will “shut down the border” the day his supplemental war funding bill is passed and signed into law.
Federal officers in San Diego remove handcuffs from men before releasing them through a gate in a border wall to Tijuana, Mexico, Wednesday, March 15, 2023.