Immigration is already shaping up to be a major campaign issue for Republicans, just days into the new year.
House Speaker Mike Johnson is leading a delegation of 60 House Republicans to the U.S.-Mexico border on Wednesday, his latest effort to push President Biden to crack down on immigration.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told NPR ahead of the visit that he expects Johnson will see two things: the “heroic work” of U.S. Customs and Border Protection as well as “the result of a broken immigration system.”
The situation at the border has become a central point of conflict between Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill. Republicans have demanded action to address the flow of migrants as a condition for negotiations on major issues like funding for the war in Ukraine and as part of talks to avoid a government shutdown.
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Still, he said, those efforts are taking place in a system that is “in desperate need of reform,” noting that Biden has asked Congress for the money to pay thousands of additional Border Patrol agents, asylum officers, immigration judges and various technology upgrades.
That’s why the ongoing Senate negotiations are so important, he added:
“It is certainly our hope and our trust that as House members visit Eagle Pass, Texas and see the magnitude of the challenge that our dedicated, heroic workforce faces every day that they will come back to Washington focused on solutions … for all of the departments that are invested in the immigration system and for the American people.”
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Article URL : https://www.npr.org/2024/01/03/1222600920/mayorkas-immigration-republicans-border-visit