Johnson dismisses Senate foreign aid bill without border reform: 'America deserves better'

As the Senate moves to advance a foreign aid bill to send funding to Israel, Taiwan, and Ukraine, House Speaker Mike Johnson has fired a warning shot to the upper chamber, suggesting that any foreign aid must also address the situation at the southern border.

The Senate is currently moving to approve an aid package to the three nations after irate Republicans blocked an initial plan to pair it with border security reforms they deemed likely to worsen the situation or otherwise fail to effectively curtail illegal crossings. House Republican leadership, for its part, has insisted that foreign aid meet with strict border policies.

"House Republicans were crystal clear from the very beginning of discussions that any so-called national security supplemental legislation must recognize that national security begins at our own border. The House acted ten months ago to help enact transformative policy change by passing the Secure Our Border Act, and since then, including today, the Senate has failed to meet the moment," Johnson said in a statement.

"The Senate did the right thing last week by rejecting the Ukraine-Taiwan-Gaza-Israel-Immigration legislation due to its insufficient border provisions, and it should have gone back to the drawing board to amend the current bill to include real border security provisions that would actually help end the ongoing catastrophe," he continued. "Instead, the Senate’s foreign aid bill is silent on the most pressing issue facing our country."

"The mandate of national security supplemental legislation was to secure America’s own border before sending additional foreign aid around the world," the Louisiana lawmaker further asserted. "It is what the American people demand and deserve. Now, in the absence of having received any single border policy change from the Senate, the House will have to continue to work its own will on these important matters. America deserves better than the Senate’s status quo."

Johnson's statement comes as the upper chamber on Monday evening moves toward a procedural vote to further advance the aid package. 

Ben Whedon is an editor and reporter for Just the News. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter.