Five Republican senators threatened to deny their support for any spending bill presented to the Upper House if more funds are not allocated for border security, and specifically, to continue building a wall on the border with Mexico, local media revealed this Saturday.
Senators Mike Braun (Indiana), Marco Rubio (Florida), Mike Lee (Utah), Cynthia Lummis (Wyoming), and Ted Cruz (Texas) established their position in a letter that they will send this Monday to other of their colleagues, the chain revealed. Fox news agency, who had access to the document.
“We will not offer support to any general financing agreement of the fiscal year 2022 that omits this financing or authorizes the Administration (of Joe Biden) to eliminate the border security measures previously built,” they say in a letter.
In addition, they defend the continued financing of border security, in particular the construction of physical barriers, as a “necessary” measure to face the “continuous migratory crisis.”
Republicans have attributed the spike in the number of immigrants detained at the border with Mexico trying to enter the country illegally to the decision of the Biden government to reverse the policies of his predecessor, Donald Trump (2017-2021), including the construction of the border fence.
On his first day in power, Biden signed a decree that ordered an end to the national emergency decreed by Trump to divert funds towards the construction of the wall and stop works on it.
The border wall was Trump’s proposed flag during his time in the White House.
Throughout his four years in power, the now-former Republican president raised $ 15 billion to replace the fence and erect new sections of wall along 727 kilometers (452 miles) of the border, covering more than a quarter. part of the 3,145 kilometers (1,954 miles) that separate the US from Mexico.
Senators noted, for example, that funding for the wall was excluded from appropriation bills promoted by Democrats.
Specifically, according to Fox, the Homeland Security appropriations bill withdraws $ 1.9 billion in funding for the wall.
At the same time, it allocates $ 14.5 billion for Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which is about $ 500 million less than in the fiscal year 2021.
In the last 12 months, border authorities detained more than 1.7 million illegal immigrants who crossed the border with Mexico, a figure not seen in recent decades.