Speaker Johnson thinks union support of proposal ‘does have something to do with the pay structure that’s in the bill’
GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson told Fox News on Monday he believes the bureaucrats in the National Border Patrol Council are supporting the latest proposed “border bill” because they’ll receive raises in salary.
Newsbusters Managing Editor Curtis Houck posted a clip of the interview where Speaker Johnson told Fox host Laura Ingraham that he thinks the Border Patrol union’s support of the bill “does have something to do with the pay structure that’s in the bill.”
.@SpeakerJohnson on the Border Patrol Union endorsing the border deal: “Well, I think it does have something to do with the pay structure that’s in the bill. I understand that they’re desperate for measures that will assist…We took 64 Republicans down to the Del Rio sector down… pic.twitter.com/AfyT4mCBYV
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) February 6, 2024
The Border Patrol union announced Monday it would be supporting the proposed legislation despite the fact that it’s “not perfect.”
The union also noted it doesn’t endorse the money being sent to Ukraine and Israel via the bill.
BREAKING: In a statement to @FoxNews, the Border Patrol union says they support & endorse the bipartisan border deal negotiated in the Senate, saying it’s “not perfect, but far better than the status quo”.
They do not endorse the rest of the spending bill.
Statement from @BPUnion pic.twitter.com/sID38iafyE— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) February 5, 2024
Even mainstream outlets like Newsweek have now been forced to admit Speaker Johnson is correct about Border Patrol being provided a financial incentive to back the bill, writing, “The legislation also includes provisions to boost the number and base pay of some border control staff, raises the eligibility threshold for applying for asylum and provided for an additional 50,000 immigration visas for each of the next five years.”
For example, the proposal boosts the base salary for General Schedule employees of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services by 15%.
DHS would receive a total of $18 billion in funding if the bill passes.
Government Executive reports:
“$700 million would go toward hiring of Custom and Border Protection officer and Border Patrol agent hiring, $500 million for Immigration and Customs Enforcement staffing, upwards of $4 billion for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to onboard more than 4,300 new asylum officers and $56 million for the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center to staff up to train all of those new employees.”
One issue with dishing out all that tax money in hopes to hire more staff is DHS has previously struggled to find Border Patrol workers.
Politicians have had to fight to get back some of the money meant to be spent on hiring new employees in the past when the agency failed to reach expectations.
For a fantastic breakdown of the ridiculous bill, check out the following segment of The Alex Jones Show:
