Five Republicans Threaten to Pull Support From Spending Bill If Border Wall Funds Aren't Included

The Biden administration, at the outset in January 2021, scrapped Trump's pet project – the construction of a wall on the border with Mexico aimed at hindering illegal immigration. POTUS took the step even though suspending the programme cost millions of dollars.

Five GOP senators have issued a warning that they will refuse to back any omnibus spending bill, which is used to pass several smaller appropriation bills, that does not include, in their view, adequate funding for border security, including for the construction of a wall on the border with Mexico. Republican lawmakers Mike Braun, Marco Rubio, Mike Lee, Cynthia Lummis, and Ted Cruz argued in an open letter, obtained by Fox News ahead of its release, that such funding is crucial for curbing illegal immigration into the US, which has exceeded 1.7 million encounters in 2021.

"[Current funding proposals by the Senate Appropriations Committee] fail to provide America’s border agents with the proper security infrastructure necessary to defend America’s southern border from the continued crisis of unrestrained illegal migration".

The five lawmakers slammed the Biden administration for failing to acknowledge the importance of border security funding and the implications for national security that the "open-border policies" have.

The senators argued that there is "significant evidence" of the effectiveness of the border wall and lamented that the current administration ignores it. They cited the Department of Homeland Security's statistics that showed an up to 87% decrease in illegal border crossings in the areas covered by the wall built on Trump's initiative. The GOP lawmakers also pointed to the effect the wall had in terms of reducing drug smuggling and human trafficking.

"The continuation of border security funding, particularly continued funding for physical barrier construction, remains necessary during the continued immigration crisis. As such, and in the defense of our nation, we will not offer support for any fiscal year 2022 omnibus agreement that omits this funding or authorizes the administration to remove previously constructed border security measures".

Trump's pet project at the border with Mexico was put on hold indefinitely by President Joe Biden on his very first day in office. The new administration claims that there are more effective and less costly ways of combating illegal immigration out there. Namely, the White House suggested helping Central American countries to combat the poverty, unemployment, and humanitarian issues driving people to hit the road in hopes of entering the US and living better lives there. Nearly 200,000 came to the US southern border in search of this better life in September 2021 alone.

The Republicans, however, condemned this approach as ineffective, citing the complicated situation at the US border throughout 2021, with hundreds of thousands of migrants crossing into the US instead of applying at border crossings and waiting for a decision from the authorities. Some of them are even released into the country prior to a decision being made on whether they are able to stay permanently, with around half of them failing to show up to their immigration hearings.