Majority Leader Schumer Floor Remarks On President Biden’s Visit To The Southern Border Following Republicans’ Rejection Of Bipartisan Border Legislation

Washington, D.C. – Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today spoke on the Senate floor regarding President Biden’s upcoming visit to the southern border after Republicans voted to kill bipartisan border legislation. Below are Senator Schumer’s remarks, which can also be viewed here:

Today, President Biden will visit the U.S. border at Brownsville, Texas, where he will meet with local leaders and border enforcement agents. Three hundred miles up the Rio Grande, Donald Trump is expected to visit the border at Eagle Pass, Texas.

When President Biden and Donald Trump visit the border today, Americans will see a glaring contrast between a sitting president who negotiated the strongest border bill we’ve seen in years, and a former president exploiting the border for political gain and making sure nothing happens.

President Biden knows the border is a serious problem, so look at what he’s done: he sat down with Republicans to draft the strongest, most comprehensive border security bill America has seen in decades. And we worked with him here in the Senate to make that happen.

Let me say that again: President Biden knows the border is a serious problem, and that’s why he sat down with Republicans to draft the strongest, most comprehensive border bill America has seen in decades.

But what did Donald Trump do? Donald Trump deliberately sabotaged the very same border reforms that he spent years calling for, because he wants to exploit the border for the campaign trail. He explicitly took credit for the bill going down. “Please, blame it on me.” Those were his words.

It was Donald Trump who sabotaged a bill with dramatic updates to asylum.

It was Donald Trump who sabotaged a bill that reformed parole authority.

It was Donald Trump who sabotaged a bill that provided new resources to Border Patrol agents.

And it was Donald Trump who sabotaged a bill endorsed by the Border Patrol Union, the Wall Street Journal editorial page, and the Chamber of Commerce – hardly liberal groups.

So, when Donald Trump goes in front of the cameras to lament the mess at the border, he should look in the mirror. He should look in the mirror because he’s the one who tanked the best chance we’ve seen in ages to fix it. Until Donald Trump said oppose it, it would have passed, here in the Senate and even in the House. And when Republicans in Congress say that they will shut the government down or bring the legislative process to a halt unless we fund the border, that is bull, because they are the ones who blocked a deal.

Republicans are the ones exacerbating the border by pushing things like H.R. 2, which not only didn’t get a single Democratic vote, it wouldn’t even solve the problem – it wouldn’t even solve the problem.

And again, as I've reminded Speaker Johnson over and over again, you can't do anything without bipartisanship when we have divided government. So, to simply write what you want--and put it for a vote when it gets no Democratic votes--is a path to not solving the problem. In a sense its doing the same thing Donald Trump did: using it for political purposes, say the problem isn't solved for political purposes, when you're the ones who prevented the problem from being solved.

Republicans cannot – cannot – claim to be serious about fixing the border while voting against the very same border policies they’ve spent years calling for.

Republicans can't be serious about fixing the border when they say it's an emergency, and then when they have a chance to stop it they refuse, for crass political purposes. That is what happened in the last few weeks. And Democrats will make sure the American people know it.

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