OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
The GOP-controlled House on Thursday voted on a major issue involving migrants who are currently in the U.S. illegally amid a record surge following President Biden’s day-one reversals of his predecessor’s highly successful immigration and border enforcement policies.
Lawmakers passed a provision that bars the use of public land to temporarily house illegal migrants while they are applying for asylum, according to Colorado Newsline.
“The bill, H.R. 5283, passed with a majority of Republicans in support, 224–203,” the outlet reported, adding that the bill’s fate in the upper chamber is also certain, but not in a positive way for the GOP.
“It’s dead on arrival in the U.S. Senate, where Democrats hold a slim majority, and many Democrats criticized the bill as a messaging tactic for the 2024 elections, where hard-line immigration policies are the cornerstone of the GOP platform,” the outlet reported.
House Committee on Natural Resources Chairman Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.) declared: “The mission of the National Park Service is to conserve the natural and cultural resources for the enjoyment of future generations, not bail out the failed border policies of the Biden administration.”
The outlet noted further:
The push for the bill comes after the Biden administration granted New York City officials’ request to build temporary housing and facilities for migrant families at Floyd Bennett Field in southeastern Brooklyn.
The bill prohibits this type of action on land under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, or the Forest Service.
It also revokes a 2023 lease between the National Park Service and New York City to use portions of the Gateway National Recreation Area to provide housing for migrants.
During his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump made border security a top priority, an issue that is believed to have helped him edge out Democratic rival Hillary Clinton in an Electoral College rout. And he’s already making it an issue this time around, as noted by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who told Fox News host Laura Ingraham last week.
“The numbers for Trump right now get bigger and bigger and bigger. I think what you are seeing on the left is desperation that literally is a survival function. We’ve never seen this, maybe the South in 1860. Other than that, I have never seen this level of desperation in American politics, and it will get worse,” he said.
“They have a candidate who is hopeless. If you watch Joe Biden, you know he is not going to win, and they can’t get rid of him. They have a situation where their opponent is getting stronger and better and more disciplined. I think that leads to a very explosive moment in American history,” the former Speaker added.
“All the groups they thought they could count on are thinking, ‘These guys are nuts.’ And they are not going to vote for them,” the former Speaker from Georgia said. “They know they are nuts because of pain—pain in terms of fentanyl and crime, pain in terms of the price of living, and pain in the number of immigrants crossing the border.”
“Every time they turn around, they see an incompetent president who is beyond his due date. A reasonable Democratic Party, if it still existed and doesn’t, would insist Joe Biden step down. There is no Democratic Party that can do that, and he’s not going to step down. And if he did, they get Kamala Harris because in their party, in their particular universe, you cannot defeat a black woman,” he said.
The new EPIC/MRA poll finds Biden losing to Trump by 5 points, 46–41 percent, after leading Trump by a point in the same survey in August, Newsmax reported on Monday, a 6-point swing in two months’ time.
