House Speaker Johnson before final vote on aid to Ukraine laments no US border inclusion
The Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, rejected the Senate's bill, which provides for assistance to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan and may be adopted in the coming days in a corresponding statement on X (Twitter).
The Senate "has failed to fit the moment" and did not include the issue of border security with Mexico in the document.
He noted that the upper house of Congress "should have gone back to the drawing board to amend the current bill to include real border security provisions that would actually help end the ongoing catastrophe."
"Instead, the Senate's foreign aid bill is silent ont the most pressing issue facing our country. Now, in the absence of having received any single border policy change from the Senate, the House will have to continue to work its own will on these important matters. America deserves better than the Senate's status quo," Johnson said.
Johnson's statement prompted a reaction by Democratic Senator Chris Murphy, who participated in the negotiations on the bill. The legislator wrote that at first "the speaker said he wouldn’t pass Ukraine funding without a border deal and we got a deal and then he killed the deal".
"Because he said we didn’t need a deal and now he says he won’t pass our Ukraine funding bill because it doesn’t include a border deal. Honestly, wtf," said Murphy.
On the evening of February 7, the US Senate failed a procedural vote on a draft law that provides for assistance to Israel, Ukraine and strengthening control measures on the southern border of the States. The package provided for the allocation of $118 billion, including $60 billion for Ukraine, as well as immigration reform demanded by Republicans.
On February 8, the US Senate preliminarily supported a draft law that provides for assistance to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan – without migration reform and border security.
On February 11, the Senate took the next step toward passing the $95.3 billion aid bill HR 815 to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan without a deal on immigration reform and border security.
