BORDER FOCUS
All eyes in Washington will be on immigration in the coming weeks.
A Senate package to fund Ukraine and make changes to border policy has been finished, according to a key negotiator.
Meanwhile, House Republicans are ramping up impeachment efforts against Department of Homeland Security Secretary (DHS) Alejandro Mayorkas.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), the lead Democrat negotiator, indicated the bill could go to the floor this week —but the eventual fate of the package in Congress remains highly uncertain.
“We do have a bipartisan deal. We’re finishing the text right now,” he told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday.
But the rumored package has been met with mounting resistance from Republicans.
Former President Donald Trump has been lobbying against the deal.
The details of the proposal have remained muddy, with some leaks purporting that the bill would allow up to 5,000 illegal aliens into the United States each day—up to 1.8 million per year. It would also allegedly authorize the issuance of 50,000 new green cards.
Despite some opposition from Senate Republicans, the package faces decent odds in the upper chamber—it’s in the House that the package’s fate is most uncertain.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) last week said that if the rumors of the deal were true, it would be “dead on arrival” in the House.
As speaker, Johnson has near unilateral authority to decide what does and doesn’t come to the House floor.
This impasse can be overcome by a handful of parliamentary maneuvers, but none of these is guaranteed to work.
But that doesn’t mean immigration won’t be a key focus in the House in coming weeks.
Instead of the border deal, House Republicans have their eyes on another prize: impeaching Mayorkas.
Impeaching Mayorkas has been raised by Republicans nearly since the DHS chief took up his post.
Recently, those threats have finally come to fruition, with House Republicans holding hearings to consider impeaching the embattled DHS secretary.
Yesterday, they released the text of that impeachment resolution, which accuses Mayorkas of “breach of trust” and “willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law.”
The House Homeland Security Committee is set to mark up the resolution tomorrow, when it’s expected to pass along party lines.
The resolution could go to the floor as early as this week, but with Republicans’ thin House majority, passing the resolution will require nearly every Republican to support it.
If Mayorkas is impeached in the House, it is near certain he will be acquitted in the Democrat-controlled Senate, where he would stand trial and a two-thirds majority is required to convict and remove him.
—Joseph Lord
DECLINING US MILITARY
The U.S. military has declined in size and power for 10 consecutive years, according to a new report published by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.
The 2024 Index of U.S. Military Strength says that “increasing shortfalls in size and capability have left our military weaker” over the Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations.
Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts characterized the U.S. military as “weak and unprepared for conflict,” and blamed Congress for the perceived loss of military might.
“Congress has failed the American people,” Mr. Roberts said at a launch event for the report on Jan. 24.
No military on Earth matches the United States’ capabilities, however. Instead, the report suggests that the basis for its damning conclusion is the fact that the United States is ill-prepared to fight two major wars simultaneously.
A “New Cold War” with China, and increasing aggression by Iran, North Korea, and Russia, make that scenario more likely than before, the report says.
Former defense officials disagree with that assessment. Former acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller said in April of last year that it was possible China was goading the United States into crippling the economy by overinvesting in expensive military platforms of limited use.
“If we ever get into a land war in Asia again, shame on us,” Mr. Miller said. “That would be so a-strategic.”
—Andrew Thornebrooke
WHAT’S HAPPENING
- The House returns from recess.
- Charles Littlejohn, the former IRS contractor who pleaded guilty to disclosing former President Donald Trump’s tax returns, will be sentenced at a federal court in Washington.
Some Republican lawmakers are calling for retaliation after 3 U.S. soldiers were killed in a drone strike carried out by an Iran-backed group in Jordan.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is standing his ground on actions he’s undertaken to secure Texas’ border amid a wave of illegal immigration. The Epoch Times’ Darlene Sanchez explored the brewing showdown with the federal government.
Shocking footage from Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel has been released to some in the form of a 45-minute documentary. The Epoch Times’ Dan Berger reported on the harrowing contents of that documentary, released by the Jewish state.
With the 2024 presidential election fast approaching, two issues could dominate voters’ collective consciousness: abortion and unprecedented illegal immigration. The Epoch Times’ Mark Tapscott explored how these two issues are fast becoming pivotal in the upcoming election.
Ukrainian authorities announced it uncovered an insider network that has been charged with embezzling almost $40 million in funds marked for weapons purchases.
