When House Speaker Mike Johnson and 60 GOP members of Congress went to Eagle Pass, Texas, recently for a photo-op, they were probably shocked that the first question they were asked was for a show of hands of those who would shut down the government if President Biden doesn’t shut the border.
You see, that question actually frames unrestricted immigration at the southern border as the existential national crisis which it is. No wonder Texas Republican Rep. Pat Fallon lost it and immediately shouted, “We’re not gonna do ‘show of hands.’ We’re not in a classroom. We’re not doing ‘show of hands.’”
No, of course not. It’s much easier to shut down a reporter seeking the truth than it is to shut down the border and save the country.
The “show of hands” question came from Ben Bergquam of Real America’s Voice, one of the few journalists who has reported the hard realities about the border crisis on a near daily basis for years. He has followed migrants from the dangerous Darién Gap between Colombia and Panama all the way up the cartel corridor through Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, and Mexico. If you watch his reporting, you will know this is not an innocent caravan of asylum seekers; it is an invasion, plain and simple. He asks each immigrant two questions: Where are you from and where are you going? They are from across the globe, not just Central or South America. Yes, there are plenty from Venezuela, but just as many from Somalia, Egypt, West Africa, or China. And most of them are military age men. They aren’t escaping from persecution or violence; they are coming to America for jobs – and for benefits – and ultimately to drain our country of resources.
Bergquam also travels to the cities where the migrants say they want to go after the Border Patrol helps them cross the border – New York, Chicago, Los Angeles. Those cities have opened their doors to the migrant invasion, and they will pay the price as the newcomers sign up for health care, schooling, welfare, and other benefits. But we are all paying, and at a rate of at least 12,000 illegal migrants a day, the bill is rapidly becoming untenable. The influx of millions of illegals under the Biden regime has cost the nation billions of dollars at a time when our national debt has skyrocketed to an unimaginable $34 trillion. And yet Washington does nothing to solve the problem – not the Biden administration and not the Republican House of Representatives.
That’s why Bergquam asked for a show of hands from the members of Congress who had arrived in Eagle Pass, as though they had just heard of the immigration crisis. Who here is willing to shut down the government if the government doesn’t shut down the border?
It’s a reasonable question. And there were certainly some members on the tour who would have raised their hands – warriors like Andy Biggs and Eli Crane from Arizona, Matt Rosendale from Montana, and others, but the Republican leadership in the House has a dismal habit of surrendering to globalist Democrats who are more interested in settling illegal immigrants in our country than stopping them at the border.
Of course, the mainstream media paints Biggs and Rosendale and others who want to stop the flow of illegals as heartless nationalists – or worse. And when they reject fake solutions that only spend more money to make it easier for migrants to adjust to life in America, the left says they want to exploit the border crisis for political gain. No wonder weak Republicans constantly cave to the phony deals offered by Joe Biden and Sen. Chuck Schumer.
Right now, Republican Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma is being used as the sacrificial lamb who will shepherd a fake compromise plan through Congress even though it allows up to 5,000 illegal entries per day. If this plan is approved by the Senate, it will give Republicans in the House just one logical response: Shut down the government.
And it won’t be difficult. A large part of the federal government will run out of money on Friday when the continuing resolution that Speaker Johnson “negotiated” with Democrats expires. Craven Republicans would just find some way to keep the government open and pretend that they had won a victory on border security, but smart Republicans know that the Friday deadline is a huge opportunity.
Remember, it takes just one member of the House to bring a motion to “vacate the chair,” and there is no way that Johnson would survive such a motion with the narrow majority Republicans currently hold. At least one GOP member, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, has threatened to bring such a motion unless the border is shut down. If she does, all business comes to a close until a new speaker is selected, which could easily take weeks.
In other words it would shut down the government. And that, some of us believe, would not be a bad thing – not when the alternative is business as usual at the broken border.
Frank Miele, the retired editor of the Daily Inter Lake in Kalispell, Mont., is a columnist for RealClearPolitics. His newest book, “What Matters Most: God, Country, Family and Friends,” is available from his Amazon author page. Visit him at HeartlandDiaryUSA.com or follow him on Facebook @HeartlandDiaryUSA or on Twitter or Gettr @HeartlandDiary.
