US Sen Ron Johnson on Immigration, Israel and Ukraine Policy

Frederica Freyberg:
The issue of immigration reform has exploded in the U.S. with a crush of migrants entering at the southwest border. Securing the border is the most important issue, according to Republicans in Congress, but this week, the bipartisan deal that included aid to Ukraine and Israel paired with immigration reform measures collapsed in the U.S. Senate. Among leading Republicans opposed to the foreign aid border security package, Wisconsin U.S. Senator Ron Johnson, who joins us now. Senator, thanks very much for being here.

Ron Johnson:
Hello Frederica. Thanks for having me on.

Frederica Freyberg:
What is your opposition to the bipartisan border security deal that is now effectively dead?

Ron Johnson:
It made matters worse. Let me explain that. When we went into these negotiations, which I don’t think ever should have been secret, should have been public. What we were asking for is let’s use the Biden administration’s desire for Ukraine funding as leverage to force President Biden to secure the border. He opened it up. He wants an open border. His Democratic colleagues in Congress want an open border. And I don’t believe they’re negotiating in good faith, but we weren’t looking for a massive, Rube Goldberg-like immigration bill. We were just looking for simple metrics. For example, tying Ukraine funding specifically to benchmarks that he would have to meet to have the money flow. And I think we were all shocked at what was produced, but again, many, many problems with this bill, but the biggest one was presidents already have the authority to secure the border. President Trump did it with a great deal of resistance from open border groups. President Biden used that same executive authority to open up the border. He has the executive authority. He certainly has — Republicans in Congress, that if courts intervene, that we’ll do anything we can to pass measures to overrule those courts. But the fact of the matter is, this bill, by creating, for example, discretionary authority to stop processing asylum claims at 4,000, now all of a sudden you’re saying the president really doesn’t have that authority because we’re going to codify that discretion and that ability would run out after three years. So you would actually hamper a future president’s ability to secure the border before thousands of people a day on average would come into the border. And by the way, this would normalize thousands of people a day, which is just simply unacceptable.

Frederica Freyberg:
Isn’t something better than nothing in this regard?

Ron Johnson:
Not in this case, no, because it would actually take away presidential authority from a president who wants to secure the border. It would codify an awful lot of the open border policies of this administration. So, again, I’m sorry to say that. I was telling my colleagues, I would not only vote for it, I would promote a bill to secure the border and provided support to the Ukrainian people, but that’s not what we got.

Frederica Freyberg:
Can there be no negotiation?

Ron Johnson:
Well, it should have been a pretty simple negotiation. The president now realizes, because Mayor Adams, the mayor of Chicago, are talking about how a fraction of the 6 million people that Biden administration have let in are going to destroy their cities. So now they’re finding out that maybe from the standpoint of politics, we better do something. So now they’re saying they want a secure border. We’re happy to work with them but it’s to secure the border. It’s not about providing billions of dollars for sanctuary cities. It’s not about providing more levels of visas and work permits and pretty well legalizing the abuse of the pro authority. Again, there’s so many problems with this bill. Beefing up customs and border patrol so they can handle thousands a day. The better solution there is let’s bring it down to a trickle.

Frederica Freyberg:
You want to shut down the border, effectively.

Ron Johnson:
Yes, so we can establish a legal immigration system, which is what I was working with the Trump White House in 2020. Unfortunately, he lost the election. President Biden opened up the borders, set back legal immigration reform for quite some time I fear.

Frederica Freyberg:
What do you say to critics who say Republican opposition to the border deal is because former president Donald Trump weighed in against it?

Ron Johnson:
I completely disagree. I certainly never got a call. This wasn’t our concern. We looked at the actual components of the bill, and so did a lot of other people, too. The fact that this bill collapsed in under 24 hours tells you all you really need to know. Plus, Senator Murphy, one of Democrats’ chief negotiators said this never closes the border. We had a slight increase in the asylum standard, yet that’s the Democrat negotiator. This bill would have been worse than doing nothing. It actually would have harmed a future president’s ability to secure the border. That’s why we had to reject it.

Frederica Freyberg:
Meanwhile, here we are now and you did not vote to advance a now separate funding bill for emergency foreign aid. Why not?

Ron Johnson:
Well, first of all, our top priority should be to secure our own border before we spend money to secure Ukraine’s or any other nation’s. So we still wanted to make that point. But I’ve got real questions about the Ukraine war. The only way this thing ends is in a negotiated settlement. Every day that goes by, I’m going to hate the settlement, but every day that goes by, the more Ukrainians die, more Russian conscripts die. I take no joy in that. These are people yanked out of villages. More of Ukraine gets destroyed. What our actions ought to be directed toward is bringing Putin to the negotiating table rather than fueling the flames of war, a bloody stalemate to the tune of $60 billion. So, again, I have just a fundamental disagreement with people on it to fuel those flames.

Frederica Freyberg:
So, again, you oppose giving this emergency aid to Ukraine?

Ron Johnson:
Certainly without securing our border first, yes.

Frederica Freyberg:
Speaking of the border, migrants are relocating to cities, as you know, but including the small city here in Wisconsin of Whitewater. Whitewater is asking the federal government for financial help. What is your message to Whitewater officials seeking that assistance?

Ron Johnson:
I met with those officials. I’m completely sympathetic with the plight they are in caused by President Biden and his Democrat allies in Congress, their open border policy. If there’s federal funds that can be flowing to make up for their losses, it should come out of other spending. I would suggest to some degree energy boondoggles, the $400 billion that are going to really cost $1.2 trillion, re-purpose those funds. I’d be fully supportive of that.

Frederica Freyberg:
Senator Ron Johnson, we leave it there. Thanks very much.

Ron Johnson:
Have a good day.