A Republican senator suggested that the Russian Federation may be directing some criticism of a proposed border security legislative package in the Senate.
A bipartisan group of senators has been negotiating since December to enact border security reforms in exchange for Republican support for funding aid to Ukraine during its war against Russia.
Republican Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota implied on Tuesday that some criticism of the deal’s leaked contents may be impelled by the Russian government, he told Politico’s Burgess Everett.
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“I suspect that a lot of the internet rumors are very well coming from overseas, where they would love to see this shut down because some people would rather not see funding for Ukraine,” Rounds told Everett.
While the deal’s text has not yet been released, several reported provisions regarding its border security aspects have been leaked to the public. Many elected Republicans have criticized the proposed deal — which, among other things, would impose a 5,000-per-day cap on the processing of foreign national migrants who cross the southern border illegally — for not seeking to eliminate the influx of such persons.
“If the rumors about the contents of the draft proposals are true, it would have been dead on arrival in the House anyway,” House Speaker Mike Johnson wrote in a letter to his colleagues on Jan. 26. “I have assured our Senate colleagues the House would not accept any counterproposal if it would not actually solve the problems that have been created by the administration’s subversive policies.”
“The border package doesn’t even come close to securing the border,” Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas wrote on X, formerly Twitter, on Sunday. He is among several Republican figures, both inside and outside Congress, who have assailed the proposal.
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“If they were truly serious about securing the border, they would have done so using existing authorities for the past three years,” former Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Supporters of the deal insist that the compromise is the best chance of obtaining reforms to border security, a highly politicized issue.
“Now it’s interesting, a few months later, when we’re finally near the end, they’re like ‘Oh, just kidding, I actually don’t want to change the law because it’s a presidential election year,’” Republican Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma said on Fox News on Sunday.
“I just reject that we should reserve a crisis for a better time to solve it,” Republican Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota said on CNN.
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