The White House ripped House Republicans for the debt ceiling legislation they passed last month, arguing spending cuts in the bill would be a “gut punch” to border agents.
The bill would raise the debt ceiling, but also makes good on Republicans’ promise to cut spending. Democrats, who in the Senate have signaled they will not consider the House bill, have gone on the offense on the spending cuts. The White House dubbed the bill the “Default on America Act.”
“The Default on America Act defunds critical law enforcement agencies responsible for policing our southern border, including by terminating thousands of border patrol agents,” White House spokesman Andrew Bates said in a memo. “And they are threatening to single-handedly trigger a recession unless they can deliver this gut punch to the men and women who guard our border. All in service of tax cuts for the rich.”
Bates claimed that the bill, if enacted, would result in the termination of 2,000 Border Patrol agents, slash the budget of the Drug Enforcement Agency and allow 150,000 pounds of cocaine, 900 pounds of fentanyl, 2,000 pounds of heroin and 17,000 pounds of methamphetamine into the U.S.
“Their own border bill would be a windfall for human smugglers by leading to more unlawful immigration as it cuts off noncontroversial pathways to legal immigration,” Bates said.
The jab at Republicans over immigration comes after the GOP sharply criticized the Biden administration for ending the federal Title 42 policy, which allowed the government to expel migrants seeking asylum.
Republicans argued that Democrats were unprepared to deal with what they said would be a surge of migrants once the policy ended last week. But Biden administration officials have said that since Title 42 ended on Thursday, such a surge has yet to happen.