Written by Joe Gazzardi
syndicated columnist
Just before kickoff on Super Bowl Sunday, the Senate voted 67-27 to pass a $95.3 billion funding bill, moving it a step closer to passage. Two days later, after an all-night debate, the bill passed 70-27, but it did not include the border security measures originally requested by the House.
The financing package includes $60 billion for Ukraine. $14 billion in security assistance to Israel. $9 billion in humanitarian aid to Gaza, the West Bank, and Ukraine. and $4.8 billion to support allies in the Indo-Pacific.
Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (R-New York) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) spoke passionately about the urgent need to approve the bill. Schumer said the war-torn areas of Eastern Europe are in a state of devastation last seen during World War II. McConnell warned that failing to help Ukraine would give China a “green light” to flex its muscles in Asia and the Indo-Pacific, putting U.S. allies at risk.
Fellow Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul highlighted tensions within the Republican Party that could lead to the removal of the Senate minority leader, calling McConnell's support for the bill “outrageous” and calling him, Schumer, , accused President Joe Biden of “criminal neglect” for engaging in activities that “send in criminals.”Spend $100 billion overseas to fix other people's borders before addressing our own problems. [own] border. ” Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) accused Schumer of dictating which amendments would be allowed — “essentially all amendments are not allowed.”
Paul notes that days before voting to proceed with the Ukraine-Israel funding bill, the Senate created emergency powers to close the border to 5,000 people entering the country each day, instead of including border security in HR-2. They rejected a very bad immigration bill. The average number of alien encounters over a seven-day period is 8,500 per day. By law, entry of a single foreigner into the country is a violation of immigration laws. Worse, the Senate's proposed bill would allow Biden to suspend this authority at his discretion, potentially allowing thousands more illegal immigrants to enter the country.
Schumer and McConnell's urgency to help Ukraine secure its border with Russia was reflected in Sunday's unprecedented Super Bowl vote, which came just as the Senate was scheduled to go on vacation. Neither Schumer nor McConnell are interested in invading the southwest border. McConnell fears China will interpret funding cutoff to Ukraine as 'green light' to invade, unconcerned with thousands of Chinese nationals aggressively pouring across the southwest border is.
Among the millions of migrants flooding the southern border, illegal Chinese immigrants made up the fastest-growing group last year. In fiscal year 2023, CBP arrested 24,000 Chinese nationals, approximately 12 times more than the 1,970 arrests the previous year. A whopping 20,000 Chinese people have entered the country since October 1, the start of the 2024 fiscal year. If the influx of 20,000 people per fiscal quarter continues, 80,000 Chinese are expected to enter the country.
The 2023 U.S. Threat Assessment Annual Report released by the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) shows that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is achieving President Xi Jinping's vision of making China the preeminent power in East Asia a major global threat. He warned that he would continue his efforts to do so. It would weaken U.S. influence and “drive a wedge between Washington and its partners.” “Beijing intends to dominate the United States and the rest of the planet economically, militarily and technologically,” former DNI Secretary John Ratcliffe wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. It is the challenge of our generation to resist the Chinese government's attempts to reshape and dominate the world, Ratcliffe concluded. National security experts agree that China is the United States' greatest geopolitical enemy.
Assuming Ratcliffe is correct, the Biden administration has failed admirably to meet this challenge. In December, a large group of well-dressed, military-age Chinese entered San Diego and surrendered to immigration officials. Anthony Good, the chief patrol agent in the El Paso area, told the Homeland Security Committee during a closed-door hearing last September that his operatives believed that Chinese foreigners were not active operatives of the Chinese Communist Party. Committee Chairman Mark Green (R-Tenn.) said he had confirmed it. Big” concern.
Despite the Chinese nationals being a potential threat to the United States, DHS has not attempted to detain or search the Chinese nationals after Border Patrol agents release them into the interior. Mr. Schumer, Mr. McConnell, and Mr. Biden continue to turn a blind eye to the risks posed by China, determined instead to funnel bad money and even more good money into an eternal war in Ukraine.
Joe Guzzardi is an analyst at the Institute for Healthy Public Policy and has been writing about immigration for more than 30 years.
