One provision of the $1.2 trillion spending package passed by Congress and signed into law by Joe Biden last month will see at least $380 million spent on securing the borders of several Middle Eastern countries, while the American border remains wide open.
According to Fox News, the appropriation of $380 million will be available until September 2025, and will fund “enhanced border security” measures in the countries of Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Oman, and Tunisia. Jordan will be receiving the most out of the five, at $150 million.
Republicans were quick to criticize this provision as hypocritical and tone-deaf, as the southern border remains unguarded due to the Biden Administration’s open-borders policy towards immigration. The prioritizing of foreign countries’ borders over the homeland’s borders also directly clashes with the Republican Party’s newfound “America First” approach as championed by President Donald Trump.
“You see them running this thing through by dark of night with billions in things that…they’re doing border security in foreign countries, and they’re impeding border security in our country,” said House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) back in 2022.
Conservative backlash to the spending bill has led to Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) filing a motion to vacate against Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), accusing him of “betraying” the “confidence” of House Republicans by ultimately allowing the bill to pass with Republican support.
In recent months, Biden and the Democrats have finally begun acknowledging the southern border as a crisis, most likely due to its consistently high polling numbers as the dominant issue for primary voters this year. But Democrats have attempted to blame the crisis on President Trump and the Republicans for refusing to pass a border bill earlier this year; Republicans opposed the bill due to its drastic expansion of legal immigration and minimal focus on actual border security.