House Republicans had hoped to pass a narrow border security bill within the first two weeks of their new majority, notching an easy win and delivering on a key campaign promise in the process.
But a three-page bill from conservative Texas Rep. Chip Roy has run into fierce opposition from moderates, forcing GOP leaders back to the drawing board and exposing deep divisions in the party along the way.
The party’s struggles to pass a messaging bill that’s dead on arrival in the Democratic-controlled Senate — and on an issue that uniformly excites the GOP’s base, no less — underscores the challenges of governing in a razor-thin majority, and dashes whatever hopes there were for a bipartisan package to address border security and reform the nation’s broken immigration system.
For his part, Speaker Kevin McCarthy has defended the House GOP’s inaction on border security thus far, arguing it’s still early in their new majority and reiterating that Republicans are committed to addressing the issue. The California Republican made his first trip to the southern border last week as speaker, while Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee are slated to hold a field hearing Thursday afternoon in Yuma, Arizona, on what they describe as “the Biden border crisis.”
“Committees have just now been constituted, not all of them have even been constituted. So I don’t think it’s really an opportunity to say you haven’t acted,” McCarthy said during a news conference in the Tucson Sector, near a stretch of border wall. “This isn’t my first trip. This is my sixth trip. … So no, Republicans have been taking action. We’ve got a lot of ideas inside Congress.”
But the GOP’s early internal disagreement over the issue of border security has inflamed tensions between the party’s moderates and conservatives, even as Republicans are united in their…
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