WASHINGTON (NewsNation) — U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell went on the offensive Saturday, calling for Republican lawmakers to stop “stoking grievances” and work to pass the bipartisan Senate border bill.
“What’s remarkable is that this bill that the president’s referring to was written by the second most conservative member of the Senate, Sen. James Lankford,” said Swalwell. “And he worked with the president to surge resources to the border to expedite the processing of asylum claims so that we can move on to other immigration issues.”
Senate Republicans in February resisted advancing a bipartisan proposal intended to clamp down on illegal border crossings. The carefully negotiated deal represented a rightward shift in Senate negotiations over border measures, yet the backlash was still intense from conservatives. They savaged the border policy proposal as insufficient, with former President Donald Trump leading the charge.
“President Biden showed that he wants to govern and get something done,” said Swalwell. “I think the Republicans showed that if Donald Trump says ‘Don’t do it.’ Well, then we’ll just keep the issue and let the solution hang out there.”
Swalwell said he believes that former President Donald Trump is trying to keep the border issue in play as he inches closer to becoming the presumptive GOP nominee.
“(Trump) hammers home the border issue. And then he sees that Republicans are working with the president to solve the border issue and he sees his own presidency and his candidacy evaporating if that issue is taken away. And so he tells them plainly to kill it (the bipartisan border deal),” Swalwell said.
Biden’s willingness to work with Republicans on the border issue has angered some progressives who see it as a shift to the right on the issue and backtracking on some of Biden’s campaign promises.
“The president would just do very well to remember it has never worked for Democrats to just take up Republican talking points and think that somehow Republicans are going to turn around and thank us for it,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., the chair of the Progressive Caucus, said back in January. “That’s just not going to happen.”
