“We need to make any funds that go to Ukraine contingent on the administration actually reducing the number of migrants that are being dispersed in America” 

WASHINGTON – On Wednesday, U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, joined U.S. Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), Senate GOP colleagues, and members of the House Freedom Caucus (HFC) in a joint press conference calling for Ukraine funding to be contingent on actually securing the southern border. Sen. Johnson emphasized the clear and present danger that President Biden’s open border poses to America, and he urged Senate Republicans to deny cloture to any spending bill that does not include hard metrics for dramatically reducing the flow of illegal migrants.

“Biden's open border is a clear and present danger to America,” said Sen. Johnson. “And no matter what we pass legislatively, we can't trust the president and his administration, to faithfully execute that law. So we have one leverage point here. The administration wants funding for Ukraine. We need to use that leverage point.”

Watch the senator’s full remarks here. 

On the significance of House and Senate conservatives working together on spending issues 

“I want to thank all of our conservative House colleagues for trekking over here to the Senate. Not only today, but consistently over the last year, meeting with conservatives in the Senate, trying to resolve and fix some of these issues. I’ll point out, it’s those meetings that resulted in, for example, us getting through the whole debt ceiling crisis. You'll remember it was the House Freedom Caucus that proposed a piece of legislation, and then compromised with the House colleagues and offered the Senate a pretty commonsense piece of legislation that again, got us past that. So, again, we're trying to lead in this instance as well. Just real quick on this chart, before I put up the border chart, I keep playing with the numbers, I'm an accountant, and I thought this was pretty simple, pretty interesting. When you take a look at what we passed in terms of budget authority over the last four years, it was $5.6 trillion, but we outlayed $6.6 trillion... It is completely out-of-control.”

On the clear and present danger at the southern border

“It is unfortunate, and I completely agree with what the House has passed in terms of, H.R. 2, that type of language, in the hands of a president that actually wanted to secure the border, in the hands of an administration that would faithfully execute the laws passed by Congress, H.R. 2 would work, but we don't have that with this administration. Our open border, Biden's open border, is a clear and present danger to America, and no matter what we pass legislatively, we can't trust the president and his administration to faithfully execute that law.

 “…Now, since this administration has started, there’s been about over 6 million people, at least 6 million, 1.7 million of that are detected gotaways. We have no idea who these people are or where they are located. We really don't know where the other 5.3 million people are,the ones who were encountered, processed, and dispersed. This is completely out-of-control. You have Hamas now calling for days of rage. Do you think in that 1.7 million or the overall 6 million, there may be a bad person or two? It's a clear and present danger.”

On the need for hard metrics that reduce the number of illegal migrants dispersed in America

“So we have one leverage point here. The administration wants funding for Ukraine. We need to use that leverage point, and we need to make any funds that go to Ukraine contingent on the administration actually reducing the number of migrants that are being dispersed in America.

“…So, what the Senate must insist on is if they take up a supplemental, if they're looking at funding for Ukraine, Republicans in the Senate must hold firm and deny cloture on any bill that doesn't include benchmarks, hard metrics, and again, the metric needs to be number of migrants dispersed into America, whether, again, they're encountered, processed, and dispersed, or detectable gotaways, or any other category. And we need to deny cloture on any bill that doesn't include that hard metric. And just as an example, and you see in this chart, President Trump had to deal with the effect of DACA, the lawless actions of the Obama administration, which really sparked this multi-year border crisis, but just through sheer willpower with the current laws in place, President Trump basically secured the border in a 12-month time period. And so that's what the bill I'm working on, in terms of providing metrics, again, where the Ukraine funding would be contingent on those metrics being met and certified, you would ramp that down to pretty much a secure border over 12 months.”

On not allowing Biden’s open border policies to continue

“There is going to be one of two things that happen by next November. We’re either going to secure the border or we’re not going to secure it, and the Biden open border policy is going to continue. I think what we’re saying is, we don’t want, and we will not allow, to the best of our ability, any Republican fingerprints on anything that’s going to keep the border open. We want to be part of the solution, and by the way that would be a huge favor to Democrats and Biden. We're not playing politics here. This would be actually detrimental politically to us. If we help Biden and force him to actually secure the border, that would fix one of the problems that the American people don't like his administration for. So we are about actually securing the border and nothing less than that.”

###