Democrats Strongarm Divided GOP to Okay Billions for Migration and Ukraine

Democrats will help Republican legislators and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) avoid a government shutdown in exchange for $3.3 billion to accelerate their inflow of wage-cutting, rent-spiking migrants.

The migration price was described by Democrat Whip Rep. Katherine Clark (MA), who told Politico:

We want him [McCarthy] to live up to the agreement that he made [with President Biden]. We want to get disaster aid out [for migration]. We want to continue our support for Ukraine. And we want them to end this sham of an impeachment inquiry.

The “disaster aid” refers to the spending request sent by President Joe Biden in August. The request includes $3.3 billion to provide transport and welfare to the millions of migrants who have been invited by Biden’s deputies to take Americans’ jobs and housing.

RELATED EXCLUSIVE: 2,000 Migrants Cross into Texas Border by Early Afternoon, At Least 1,500 More Expected

The package also includes another $24 billion to help Ukraine fight its war against Russia despite the massive death toll and risk of nuclear escalation. The war is strongly backed by U.S. economic interests who hope to profit from a post-war Ukraine.

Clark believes she has the leverage to demand money for migration because a small group of House Republicans blocked McCarthy’s effort Thursday to push through a spending bill before the government’s financial year ends on September 30.

If the deadline is missed, the government must stop spending money — and the Democrats can use their media allies to blame the GOP for the disruption.

Democrats are also trying to win a handful of GOP votes so they can push their own pro-migration spending plans out of the House via a discharge petition.

That discharge petition plan would likely include most of Clark’s priorities, including the money for additional migrants.

So far, two GOP representatives from New York — Marc Molinaro and Mike Lawler — are suggesting they may join the Democrats. Lawler’s district leans Democrat, and in March, he suggested he would endorse an immigration amnesty that would also provide more workers and renters to his state’s investors.

Appropriations Politics

The House and Senate have failed to pass appropriations bills for most of the 12 bill packages that fund the federal agencies’ myriad spending programs.

McCarthy spent much of this week trying to push through a stopgap “continuing resolution” (CR) that would continue most spending policies established in December 2022 until January 2024.

But that CR plan was blocked by a small group of conservative Republicans who voted no.

The Republican group insisted that McCarthy restore the traditional practice of debating and voting on the 12  spending bills one by one. Those 12 bills include spending for defense, education, and other categories.

The conservatives included Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA), Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), and Rep. Eli Crane (R-AZ).

The small-government Republicans favor the traditional bill-by-bill approach — dubbed “regular order.”

The approach reduces the ability of both parties’ top congressional leaders to sneak unpopular, pro-establishment spending priorities inside lengthy, last-minute spending bills. The contents of the CRs are kept secret by leaders who do not release the bill until hours before the September 30 deadline.

In the resulting battle, McCarthy tried to get the conservatives to support his CR by adding a list of popular and effective migration curbs. On September 18, Breitbart News reported this package would:

• Block federal funds from being used to transport illegal aliens into the U.S. interior
• Halt Biden’s CBP One app, used to get border crossers through the border
• Block funds for Biden’s prosecutorial discretion policy for illegal aliens
• Block funds used to mass release border crossers awaiting their asylum hearings
• Halt funds to Biden’s parole pipeline

However, the migration curbs were not in the Senate’s draft CR, so final CR measures likely would have been stripped when House and Senate leaders met in a closed-door conference to negotiate differences between the two plans.

Gaetz and his allies denounced McCarthy’s planned CR strategy. McCarthy “purposefully backed us up against the wall on spending bills and then sent everyone home at 3 pm on a Thursday” once the CR was blocked, Gaetz said.

Gaetz also suggested that McCarthy delayed debate over the immigration-related appropriations bill to pressure the GOP’s immigration hawks to support the big CR.

RELATED — Gaetz: If McCarthy “Embraces” Biden’s Spending Levels, It Will Likely “Trigger a Motion to Vacate”

McCarthy’s allies slammed Gaetz and his group.

“Conservatives who really understand what’s going on here know that Gaetz sabotaged the greatest chance in decades to exert leverage against the Senate and White House on a real border security package,” Cliff Sims, a former White House deputy for former President Donald Trump, told Breitbart News.

“Some of the most conservative members developed a package to include most of HR2 in the continuing resolution. It would already be on Schumer’s desk right now were it not for Gaetz. Now, he’ll say, ‘Oh, I’m for that; it’s why I want single-issue appropriations bills.’ That’s messaging for low-information voters that he’s trying to manipulate,” Sims continued. “In reality, his conservative colleagues know his antics stopped the real momentum, which is why some of them are calling him out. Conservatives love a fighter, but what we really love is a fighter who’s smart, strategic — and knows how to win, which is why Trump’s approach has always resonated so much.”

“It’s mischaracterizing these individuals as conservatives,” Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH), chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said on Fox News. “Conservatives are overwhelmingly voting with Kevin McCarthy…  [but] they’re voting with the Democrats,” he added.

The breakdown spotlights the GOP’s painful splits between anti-migration voters and pro-migration donors, said Jon Feere, a former immigration official under Trump.

He told Breitbart News:

The issue is that the Democratic Party has decided that it is fully in support of open borders and mass legal immigration by any means necessary. But the Republican Party still doesn’t know if it’s with the [pro-]amnesty side or the Trump’s let’s-enforce-our-immigration-laws side … It’s easier [for legislators] not to do anything other than have some hearings and bellyache and then go home for recess than it is to actually sit down and have some serious, substantive debates over what we expect.

Amid the split between voters and donors, “they aren’t doing much of anything,” he said.