AUSTIN (Nexstar) — As the U.S. Congress and the White House are locked in contentious negotiations over a potential border security plan, there’s another party asserting their leverage as a partner on the border: the country of Mexico.
On Friday, Mexican President Andres Manuel López Obrador announced a series of demands from the United States in exchange for cooperation on stemming unprecedented migration. The president called for $20 billion in aid for Latin American countries to address the root causes of migration, work visas for 10 million Hispanics in the U.S., and the end of economic sanctions against Venezuela and Cuba.
“Ransom,” U.S. Sen. John Cornyn wrote on X in response to the news.
In a speech on the Senate floor Tuesday afternoon, Cornyn did not directly address Mexico’s demands, but instead criticized the Biden administration’s response to the crisis on the border. In calling illegal immigration an “unmitigated disaster,” he called on the Senate to be critical of the President’s border budget request.
“In some places, the President’s request was bloated. In others, it was wholly insufficient. And large portions of the bill, especially those related to the border, would actually make the problem worse,” Cornyn said. “The Senate cannot and will not rubber stamp the President’s supplemental funding request. There’s no chance. Instead, we need to be in the process of working through a bill that can deliver real, actionable results.”
The White House defended the plan Tuesday and signaled some agreement with Mexico around establishing a path to citizenship.
“On his first day in office, President Biden presented Congress with a comprehensive immigration reform plan that included a legislative proposal that would give hardworking people who enrich our communities every day and who have lived here for years an opportunity to earn citizenship,” a White House official told Nexstar Tuesday. “We continue to call on Congress to act on his proposal to fix our broken immigration system.”
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