Chip Roy: Border package authors ‘don’t know what they’re talking about’

Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) took aim at bipartisan Senate negotiators for the border security deal revealed over the weekend that he says he will oppose.

Roy criticized the proposed deal on CNN’s “The Source with Kaitlan Collins” on Monday for establishing a threshold of 5,000 average daily migrant encounters at the border before requiring it be shut down. Collins pushed back on this criticism and suggested that if this measure was in place today, the border would already be shut down.

“If you set a standard of about 5,000, the cartels will go ah, I get it. 4,999? You got it,” Roy said.

Roy and Collins continued to argue over whether the border would be shut down if the proposed legislation were in place now.

“What I’m telling you is … the cartels would adapt. They would adapt,” Roy said. “There would be 4,999.”

“I should note. The people who wrote this bill disagree with you. They say it would shut down the border, right now, including Senator Sinema, who, as you know, is from Arizona,” Collins responded.

“And they don’t — they don’t know what they’re talking about over there,” Roy said.

According to the proposed deal, the Department of Homeland Security would be required to close the border to all migrants without appointments to seek asylum if the average number of daily crossings reaches 5,000. This would also apply if the number of crossings exceeds 8,500 on a single day.

The proposal would also give the department the power to close the border to all migrants who don’t have appointments when average daily migrant encounters reach 4,000.

Negotiations, led by Sens. James Lankford (R-Okla.), Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) and Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), have been ongoing for months as the senators worked to reach a deal that would provide new provisions on the border as well as funding for Israel and Ukraine.

Roy suggested that one of his issues with the proposal was Ukraine funding being tied to the border security provisions, which Senate Republicans demanded last year.

“And first of all, the reality is the backdrop here is really important. We have Ukraine funding, as a big part of this $118 billion bill, $60 billion for Ukraine, as well as some other foreign aid, none of which is paid for. And then, you slap in $20 billion of border funding, tied to legislation that we find to be problematic,” he told Collins.

The $118 billion national security supplemental includes $60 billion for Ukraine, $14.1 billion for Israel and aid for Indo-Pacific allies in addition to the bipartisan border agreement.

The bipartisan deal was quickly met with widespread criticism from conservatives, including Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and House GOP leadership, who have suggested the bill will go nowhere in the House even if it is passed by the Senate.

The Hill has reached out to Lankford, Sinema and Murphy for comment.