DeSantis blames congressional Republicans for failure on U.S. southern border
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in Naples on Tuesday blamed congressional Republicans for failing to get a bill passed on the U.S. southern border, saying they’d lost all their leverage with President Joe Biden.
DeSantis was referring to how the U.S. House on Saturday failed to pass H.R. 3602 while separately passing $95 billion in foreign aid via three separate bills for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. The House also passed a fourth bill that banned TikTok.
House Democrats joined Republicans in voting for the measures that passed, enabling them to overcome far-right opposition. The aid funding package is now in the U.S. Senate where it is expected to pass.
“Republicans were sent there and the number one issue that our voters wanted them to address is the southern border and the massive influx of foreigners by the millions coming into this country, and we don’t know who these people are,” DeSantis told reporters. “And they basically just surrendered on the border. They now have no leverage to do anything on the border.”
Earlier this year, there was bipartisan support to pass a measure that combined an immigration overhaul that was similar to the bill that failed Saturday, as reported by the Idaho Capital Sun, with the foreign aid. But after former President Donald Trump said he wouldn’t support the measure — while simultaneously campaigning on the issue – it was abandoned by Republicans.
“They had an opportunity to insist that Biden accept the border if he wanted all the foreign aid, and they decided to capitulate. And so, he got everything he wants,” DeSantis said. “And Republican voters did not get anything with respect to stopping this problem at the southern border.”
Florida House Republicans voted in favor of the failed border package Saturday. Florida House Democrats voted against it, while one Democrat did not vote, according to U.S. House records. While a majority of the House voted for the bill, it still failed because it needed two-thirds support to pass.
Among the 20 Florida House Republicans, 14 of them voted against the Ukraine funding package, while six voted in favor of it, according to an analysis by The Washington Post. Among the eight Florida House Democrats, all voted in favor of funding Ukraine and Taiwan. U.S. Rep. Maxwell Frost, a Democrat from Orlando, broke with his Democratic colleagues and voted against the TikTok ban and the Israel funding measure.
“We’re doing more in Florida to deal with it than the Congress is. I mean, it’s just pathetic that that’s going on. So I was really really disappointed to see that they basically capitulated entirely on the border and at this point you’re not gonna see anything done on the border for the rest of this year,” DeSantis said. “What are we just going to let in another 2 million people and do nothing about it? I think it was a real, real failure.”
