The bipartisan border security deal that’s headed for a pivotal first vote this week would pair $20 billion in emergency spending with policy changes that would amount to the most stringent immigration bill endorsed by a Democratic president in recent memory.

President Joe Biden is calling the bill the “toughest and fairest” in decades — and progressives are calling it a return to the Trump era.

The 370-page bill is already in jeopardy, with House Republican leaders vowing that they’ll never vote on the long-negotiated package. They are joined by conservative senators who argue that the $118 billion-plus legislation, which also sends tens of billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, has too many loopholes to effectively stop spiking migration at the southern border.

Progressives in both chambers of Congress are also turned off by the deal, lamenting that it amounts to an embrace of Donald Trump-style border policies and an undue shrinking of the asylum system designed to protect vulnerable immigrants.

Yet Biden is throwing his weight behind the plan, which he called “essential” to making the U.S.-Mexico border “more orderly, secure, fair, and humane.” It would deliver far more emergency cash than his October request for less than $14 billion in border funding as illegal border crossings from Mexico reached an all-time high in December, with nearly 250,000 arrests.

As members of both parties scrap over the substance of the bill, here’s a rundown of what’s really in it:

Detention

Immigration and Customs Enforcement would get almost $8 billion in emergency funding, rivaling the agency’s regular annual budget of about $9 billion. The emergency funding would include more than $3 billion for increased detention capacity.

Asylum

The plan would set a goal of speeding up the review of asylum claims, striving to let no cases last more than six months — often by allowing asylum officers to close out a claim rather than going through immigration courts. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services would get nearly $4 billion to help shoulder that new workload, including for hiring more than 4,300 asylum officers.

The measure would require asylum seekers to show greater proof to seek refuge in the U.S. and would ensure they are allowed a lawyer if they are facing rapid deportation. All unaccompanied children under 14 years old would also be granted lawyers during removal proceedings, covered by an infusion of $350 million for the Department of Health and Human Services.

Immigrant advocates quickly panned the proposal, with the ACLU arguing that it would “eviscerate” longstanding protections, and the National Immigrant Justice Center stressing that it would make asylum “largely un-obtainable for those who are permitted to request it at ports of entry.”

‘Border shutdown’

The bill would force the Department of Homeland Security to shutter the border if daily illegal crossings top 5,000 migrants on average or 8,500 in a single day. Unaccompanied minors from countries other than Mexico and Canada wouldn’t count toward that total.

The administration could only reopen the border if encounters of illegal crossings drop to 75 percent of the number that initially triggered the closure.

DHS would also have the power to shut down the border if crossings average more than 4,000 a day for a week, and Biden has signaled he would aggressively use that authority.

During a “border shutdown,” many people trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border would be quickly deported. But exceptions would be made for unaccompanied minors and people who meet the requirements of the United Nations Convention Against Torture rules.

Ports of entry

DHS would still consider asylum requests from people crossing at legal ports of entry during those periods of “border shutdown” — just not in between those ports. Officials would have to process at least 1,400 asylum requests per day under those terms.

Local support

$1.4 billion would be disbursed to help states and local governments handle the influx of immigrants. In New York alone, Gov. Kathy Hochul earlier this month proposed spending $2.4 billion to provide services to migrants in her annual budget.

Border wall

The bill would force the Biden administration to use money already laid out for border barriers on the kind of steel fencing that Trump boasted during his tenure. That “bollard”-style border wall is supposed to be 18 to 30 feet high, with “anti-dig” and “anti-climb” features.

Afghan nationals

Permanent residency would be offered to Afghans who fled their home country and received special immigrant visas following the withdrawal of U.S. forces in 2021. It would also allow Afghans who are considered U.S. allies to be deemed refugees and entitled to special State Department protections or immediate removal from Afghanistan.

Special immigrant status would also be offered to Afghans who are an immediate relative of a U.S. military member or veteran. Up to 2,500 special immigrant visas would be offered a year, for a total of up to 10,000.

Visas

The deal would free up 250,000 new visas over half a decade for people seeking to work in the U.S. or to join family members. It would offer work authorization to the children and spouses of people who have H-1B visas for specialized jobs that often require a bachelor’s degree, like tech and engineering work.

Immigrants awaiting visas would also be eligible for work if they have a U.S. citizen spouse or fiancé, or if their parent is the spouse or fiancé of a U.S. citizen.

Countering fentanyl

Folded into the border security deal is legislation aimed at beefing up anti-money laundering policies and sanctions, known as the Fend Off Fentanyl Act.

The Drug Enforcement Administration would receive more than $23 million to disrupt and disband Mexican cartels trafficking fentanyl across the southern border. And the State Department and USAID would see about $25 million for programs aimed at curbing the flow of the drug into the U.S.

‘Documented Dreamers’

Advocates and some Democrats quickly slammed the lack of relief or pathways to citizenship for so-called Dreamers, or undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children. There’s also no new citizenship path for farm workers or other long-time residents who work in essential jobs.

The legislation does, however, aim to provide a pathway to citizenship for “Documented Dreamers,” or children who accompanied their parents on a work visa and who could potentially lose their place in line for a green card at age 21.

Work permits

Immigrants who apply for asylum could be eligible to work in the U.S. while they wait.

Border Patrol

Customs and Border Protection would get nearly $7 billion in emergency funding, a massive infusion above its current yearly budget of about $21 billion. That extra funding would include $723 million would cover increased hiring of Border Patrol agents and overtime pay.

The bill would also give DHS more flexibility in hiring Border Patrol agents and create yearly training requirements for non-lethal force, protecting due process and preserving civil and human rights.

Anthony Adragna contributed to this report.

Former President Donald Trump blasted the Senate’s bipartisan border bill Monday morning, calling the legislation, which would tighten asylum standards and automatically shut down the southern border to illegal crossings if encounters reached a certain daily threshold, a “great gift to the Democrats, and a Death Wish for The Republican Party.”

“Only a fool, or a Radical Left Democrat, would vote for this horrendous Border Bill, which only gives Shutdown Authority after 5000 Encounters a day, when we already have the right to CLOSE THE BORDER NOW, which must be done,” Trump posted on Truth Social. Some Trump surrogates have made similar arguments in recent weeks as details about the agreement began to emerge.

Senators released a finalized deal on stricter border and immigration policies on Sunday night, which is headed toward an uncertain floor vote later this week.

Trump previously pledged to fight the bill “all the way.”

“As the leader of our party, there is zero chance I will support this horrible, open borders betrayal of America. It’s not going to happen, and I’ll fight it all the way,” Trump said last month during a campaign event in Nevada. And he lavished praise on House Speaker Mike Johnson, who declared the bill “dead on arrival,” in the House.

Trump and his allies have been feverishly working to scuttle the bill, which his likely 2024 presidential opponent, President Joe Biden, desperately wants to see pass.

Biden on Sunday lauded the bill, which he said in a statement Sunday night would make the border more secure and the asylum process more fair, while delivering desperately needed aid to U.S. allies around the world, including Ukraine and Israel.

“Now, House Republicans have to decide. Do they want to solve the problem? Or do they want to keep playing politics with the border? I’ve made my decision. I’m ready to solve the problem. I’m ready to secure the border,” Biden said.

Democrats are dumping another $1.25 million into next week’s bellwether special election to replace George Santos.

The last-minute TV ad blitz race suggests some concern from Democrats about next Tuesday’s contest in New York’s 3rd Congressional District.

House Majority PAC, Democrats’ top outside group focused on House races, is releasing three new ads to boost Democratic former Rep. Tom Suozzi against Republican Mazi Melesa Pilip. And one of their ads even compares her to the disgraced Santos, whose expulsion from the House triggered the special election.

The super PAC’s new ads aim to defend Suozzi from Republican attacks that he is weak on border security and slam Pilip on abortion rights. A third spot accuses Pilip of ethics issues and compares her to Santos. The new buy will run from Tuesday through the election.

The eleventh-hour deluge is notable because Democrats already have a massive financial advantage in the race. House Majority PAC alone has spent $7.2 million. But both parties desperately want a victory in the race.

Democrats are hoping to reverse recent declines on Long Island after losing seats there last cycle to Republicans running on crime-centered narratives. A loss would set an ominous start to the 2024 election year in which Democrats face tough fights for the White House and both chambers of Congress.

For Republicans, the race is a kind of referendum of their recent gains — and the first special election under House Speaker Mike Johnson. The election will test the continued potency of GOP messages on issues such as immigration and crime, and can provide additional immediate padding to Republicans’ razor-thin majority in the House.

Before this latest buy, Democrats had already spent or reserved a collective $10.1 million on advertising, compared to nearly $6.6 million from Republicans, according to data from AdImpact. Suozzi also vastly outraised Pilip by a more than 3 to 1 margin from Oct. 1 through Jan. 24.

But that spending gap doesn’t seem to be completely quelling Democrats’ worries.

One new HMP spot calls Pilip “an ethical nightmare” who will “embarrass us again” and juxtaposes her photo with the disgraced Santos. The voiceover warns that Pilip owes more than $100,000 in unpaid taxes to the IRS. Another says Pilip is “running on a platform to ban abortion” with no exceptions for rape or incest. The third pro-Suozzi spot touts his work to support ICE and notes that he worked with former Rep. Pete King (R-N.Y.) “to get tough on illegal immigration.”

President Joe Biden won the Long Island- and Queens-based district by more than 8 points. But Santos captured it in 2022 in a red wave that gave the GOP control of all of Long Island.

Republicans are doubling down on an immigration-centered message, using footage in some of their ads that shows Suozzi bragging about kicking ICE out of Nassau County. The migrant crisis has become a major issue in the campaign as a swell of more than 160,000 migrants from the southern border have landed in the New York City area.

President Joe Biden urged Congress to pass the bipartisan border deal unveiled Sunday night by Senate negotiators, ramping up the pressure on House Republicans who have repeatedly cast doubt on the bipartisan effort.

“Working with my administration, the United States Senate has done the hard work it takes to reach a bipartisan agreement. Now, House Republicans have to decide. Do they want to solve the problem? Or do they want to keep playing politics with the border?” Biden said in a lengthy statement.

The president’s response came not long after senators released the long-awaited $118 billion deal that would unleash stricter border and immigration policies, while sending billions of dollars to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan as well as the southern border. The bill’s introduction kicks off a sprint as the White House and negotiators work to sell the deal to Republicans and progressives before it heads for a procedural vote in the Senate scheduled for Wednesday.

The president said the agreement released Sunday includes some of the “toughest and fairest set of border reforms in decades,” and ones that he “strongly” supports. Biden asked Congress to pass the deal quickly — placing the fate of the deal in their hands. And he once again dared Republicans to reject the deal as it faces a make-or-break moment amid GOP fissures in both chambers.

“I’ve made my decision. I’m ready to solve the problem. I’m ready to secure the border. And so are the American people,” the president said. “I know we have our divisions at home but we cannot let partisan politics get in the way of our responsibilities as a great nation. I refuse to let that happen.”

The border has long been a challenging issue for the Biden White House. The president has seen record crossings since taking office in 2021, further straining a southern border already weighed down by irregular migration and an overwhelmed asylum processing system. Border Patrol agents reported a record 302,034 encounters with migrants over the southern border in December, according to figures released by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

In addition, the fast-approaching 2024 election has piled on the pressure for Biden to take action on the border — to address the crisis but to also win the messaging battle on an issue Republicans frequently used to rally their base. Former President Donald Trump, Biden’s likely 2024 opponent, is sure to continue his efforts to combust a deal, adding another layer to efforts to sell the border legislation.

The legislation includes an authority that would effectively “close” the border if the number of migrant crossings reach a certain number over a certain period of time, although a limited number of people would still be allowed to apply for asylum at ports of entry.

Biden suggested publicly late last month that he’d be open to such an authority, vowing to “shut down the border” as soon as the bill was passed.

“I urge Congress to come together and swiftly pass this bipartisan agreement,” Biden said in Sunday night’s statement. “Get it to my desk so I can sign it into law immediately.”

Given the White House’s work with Senate Republicans on the legislation, Biden administration officials have focused their attention on Speaker Mike Johnson, casting him and House Republicans as the barrier to securing the border.

During the Senate talks, the Biden administration has tried to flip the long-held view — one borne out in public polling — that Republicans are better trusted on the issues of immigration and protecting the border. The administration argues the House GOP has blocked all of the president’s efforts to secure the border.

“Despite arguing for 6 straight years that presidents need new legal authority to secure the border, and despite claiming to agree with President Biden on the need for hiring more Border Patrol agents and deploying new fentanyl detection equipment, Speaker Johnson is now the chief impediment to all 3,” White House spokesperson Andrew Bates wrote in a strategy memo released last week.

Johnson’s camp has blamed Biden for reversing Trump-era border regulations that led to an uptick in migrants crossing the border.

“In a desperate attempt to shift blame for a crisis their policies have induced, they have argued it’s a funding problem,” wrote Johnson spokesperson Raj Shah in a memo last month. “Clearly, they have no facts to back up their claim.”

The bill raises “credible fear” standards for migrants; if they are able to pass the more challenging and faster screening, the migrants would be released after full adjudication of their cases and be allowed to work immediately. The legislation would also provide 50,000 visas a year — a mix of family and employment visas, and include the Fend Off Fentanyl Act and the Afghan Adjustment Act.

A major sticking point in talks was the president’s humanitarian parole authority, which the administration uses to accept up to 30,000 migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela each month. The legislation would not affect this program, which has been central to the administration’s border management strategy, including an agreement with Mexico to also accept 30,000 migrants a month from those four countries.

But the administration would no longer be able to offer parole grants to incentivize migrants to use the online app CBP One, which would curtail the president’s authority to allow more undocumented immigrants into the country.

“This agreement on border security and immigration does not include everything we have fought for over the past three years — and we will continue to fight for these priorities — but it shows: we can make the border more secure while preserving legal immigration, consistent with our values as a nation,” Vice President Kamala Harris said in a statement.

Kevin McCarthy couldn’t bend unruly Republican lawmakers to his will in Washington. Back home in Bakersfield, Republican voters may reject his succession plan.

The ousted House speaker’s abrupt retirement launched a fierce fight for one of California’s few reliably red seats. Where it once seemed McCarthy could anoint a successor, his preferred candidate — Assemblymember Vince Fong — is battling two other viable Republicans in a test of conservative voters’ mood and attitude toward their party’s old guard.

As Fong and his rivals sprint to the March 5 primary to replace McCarthy, they are navigating the same forces that sealed his swift demise: an anti-establishment fervor in the party fed by the commanding influence of former President Donald Trump. If McCarthy’s hand-picked successor falters on his home turf, it would be another rejection of the status quo.

“There is that historic and continuing effort to topple the folks who have been on top for a while,” said Tim Rosales, a Republican consultant who’s not involved in the race.

Those headwinds could dull the edge typically enjoyed by an outgoing incumbent’s pick.

Fong does bring formidable advantages to the race. He has built up his name identification over years in office, starting out as McCarthy’s district director in 2006 before ascending the Sacramento ranks to become Assembly Republicans’ top budget official. His home county comprises the majority of the district. He also has endorsements from both McCarthy and the California Republican delegation.

Fong has projected himself as a reliable frontrunner.

“Washington and Sacramento have this gigantic bullseye on our region and we are feeling the consequences,” Fong said in an interview, pointing to Democratic efforts to phase out an oil industry that is an economic pillar in the district. “I’m the most experienced, tested, and proven candidate.”

Those assets may only go so far in a tumultuous new era of Republican infighting. McCarthy is still viewed with suspicion by a fervently pro-Trump conservative wing that sees him as insufficiently conservative and toppled his speakership. McCarthy limped into retirement after that ignominious finish, weakening his stature in the district.

Fong’s chief rivals, Tulare County Sheriff Mike Boudreaux — a longtime incumbent who is running on a law-and-order platform with a healthy dose of Trump — and Fresno-based businessperson Kyle Kirkland, who is presenting himself as a political outsider, hail from different parts of a redrawn district, giving them built-in bases.

As they compete for the mantle of Trump fealty, they are also making the case that Fong is part of a discredited establishment. Boudreaux described Fong as a kind of legacy admission.

“Look, Kevin picked his buddy,” Boudreaux said in an interview. “He’s endorsing his friend — that doesn’t mean he’s the best candidate.”

Voters will be writing the ultimate epitaph of McCarthy’s up-and-down career. His ascent brought uncustomary clout to a district that’s far removed, economically and ideologically, from California’s political power centers and population hubs of Los Angeles, San Francisco and Sacramento.

Yet McCarthy’s decision to bail on the remainder of his term stirred frustration at home — and his exit followed grumblings he had become detached from the district as his focus turned to Washington and currying favor with Trump.

“There are John Q. Citizens out here who were critical of him” for “neglecting the district and the hypocrisy over Trump,” in which McCarthy both embraced and briefly distanced himself from the former president, said former Bakersfield City Council member Mark Salvaggio, who is remaining neutral in the race. “He was known for his fundraising and recruiting Republican candidates throughout the nation, and when that vanished with his humiliating ouster, he didn’t have that anymore and I think it wasn’t fun for him.”

In an email thread between local conservatives, a prominent businessperson who is supporting Boudreaux denounced McCarthy as a “quitter” and Fong as “McCarthy 2.0,” a product of the “local machine pumping out candidates.”

Assemblymember Devon Mathis, a Republican who backs Boudreaux, derided Fong in an interview as “the guy who’s trying to skate in on someone’s coattails.”

“Frankly, a lot of people see that McCarthy abandoned everybody,” Mathis said. “He loses power, so he gets mad and he quits. That’s what I hear on the street. If a guy’s the number two to that, why would I want a guy who’s probably going to do the same thing?”

Fong and McCarthy belong to a decades-long lineage of Kern County Republicans elevated by a kingmaker political firm, Western Pacific Research, that worked for each of Fong’s Assembly runs.

An earlier paragon of that system, former Rep. Bill Thomas, already broke with McCarthy by denouncing his former protege’s handling of the Jan. 6 riots. Now some local conservatives see this election as a chance to break that system by rejecting Fong, the next in line. Western Pacific President Cathy Abernathy dismissed the infighting as “wannabes” missing the point.

“There are some activists that spend more time fighting other Republicans than fighting Democrats,” Abernathy said in an interview, “and so those people like to think there’s a machine or something going on that prevents their candidate from winning.”

Redistricting created an opening for more candidates, extending the 20th congressional district far beyond its former Kern County power base and creating what some staffers refer to as “the Godzilla district.”

Then, McCarthy’s eleventh-hour retirement unleashed chaos. Fong initially declined to run but reversed and jumped in when another presumed candidate decided against running, embroiling him in an ongoing legal fight.

McCarthy’s network has already buoyed Fong. In the weeks after launching, Fong raised tens of thousands of dollars from political action committees tied to House Republicans — including a McCarthy ally, Rep. Patrick McHenry, whom the party’s conservative wing rejected as speakership candidate. A new Super PAC just began spending on Fong’s behalf.

Yet Boudreaux outraised Fong last year in a show of his staying power. Kirkland has given his campaign $100,000, allowing him to compete with better-known candidates and fund advertising.

The former speaker has been busy exacting electoral vengeance on Republicans who crossed him. But there is a broad expectation among local Republicans that McCarthy would intervene on Fong’s behalf if he is at risk, either directly or by marshaling some of the deep-pocketed allies he collected as speaker.

“Kevin’s a competitive guy, and the odds he’s going to let someone take his seat who’s not his candidate — it’s unlikely,” said a campaign operative familiar with McCarthy’s thinking who was granted anonymity to discuss internal Republican politics.

And then there is the Trump factor.

The former president’s near-inexorable march to the Republican nomination is hanging over the race. Despite the withered state of the California Republican apparatus, it produced more votes for Trump than any other in 2020 because of its large population. Whoever wins McCarthy’s seat could well be working with a second Trump administration — and they are jostling for position.

Boudreaux has rolled out endorsements from former Trump officials and included footage of himself with Trump in his first campaign spot. Repeat candidate David Giglio was already running as the MAGA movement’s anti-McCarthy scion before McCarthy retired. Fong’s endorsement from McCarthy could cut both ways: The former speaker at one point earned the affectionate moniker “My Kevin” from Trump, yet has faced MAGA resistance.

As they compete for primary votes, candidates have focused on red-meat topics like immigration and the border — an issue that is also central to Trump’s reelection bid. Both Fong and Boudreaux highlighted it in their first campaign spots. At the same time, Boudreaux has faced attacks from the right for floating a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.

“It’s echoing the national messages that are coming from the Trump campaign,” said Republican political consultant Tal Eslick, who has worked for multiple California Republicans.

For some voters, perceived fealty to Trump could be the deciding factor — and Fong risks being tied to McCarthy’s liabilities on that front as well. McCarthy rose to prominence by wrapping his arms around the former president but lost his speakership after failing to appease GOP hardliners in a standoff over the federal budget.

“People see Kevin as someone who pretended to fully embrace the MAGA message and movement only to get power and then not deliver on things like border security,” Giglio, who placed fourth in a primary for a different seat last cycle, said in an interview. “We need someone who fully aligns with (Trump’s) vision and that way, when he wins next year, it’s not someone who’s going to obstruct him.”

Senators in both parties have finalized a deal on stricter border and immigration policies that is headed toward an uncertain floor vote in the coming days.

The $118 billion agreement, which was released Sunday afternoon and negotiated for months, would tighten the standard for migrants to receive asylum, automatically shut down the southern border to illegal crossings if migrant encounters hit certain daily benchmarks and send billions of dollars to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan as well as the border.

Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has vowed to hold a procedural vote to advance the package Wednesday, though it’s unclear if the legislation has the necessary 60 votes to clear the chamber. About 20 to 25 Republican senators are ready to evaluate the specifics and a similar number are leaning against the deal, according to lead GOP negotiator Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.). At least a handful of Democrats are also expected to vote against it.

President Joe Biden praised the agreement in a Sunday night statement that called on Congress to send it to his desk: “If you believe, as I do, that we must secure the border now, doing nothing is not an option,” Biden said.

The border-foreign aid deal faces even more difficult odds in the House. Speaker Mike Johnson said on NBC’s Meet The Press on Sunday that the House would take up a $17 billion Israel aid bill instead of the supplemental funding package. In a Saturday letter to House Republicans, Johnson had said the chamber would not swiftly consider the bipartisan deal.

Lankford and GOP allies hope that release of the text will dispel the notion that the bill would allow 5,000 undocumented immigrants to cross into the country daily. Under the parameters of the legislation and the current situation at the border, which sees crossings sometimes exceeding 10,000 per day, the border would be shut down to illegal crossings immediately.

The bill would preserve orderly asylum appointments at ports of entry as a way for immigrants to seek legal entry into the country, requiring that those ports process at least 1,400 migrants daily during periods when the border is shut down.

The legislation also includes the Fend Off Fentanyl Act and Afghan Adjustment Act as part of the larger deal. It would send about $62 billion to support Ukraine in its invasion against Russia, $14 billion in security aid for Israel, $10 billion in humanitarian assistance to the Gaza Strip and Ukraine, $20 billion for the border and nearly $5 billion to partners in the Indo-Pacific to fight Chinese aggression.

In addition to mandating a border shutdown at 5,000 daily encounters, the bill would allow the president to invoke that authority at 4,000 per day. Once the border is shut it would stay sealed to illegal crossings until encounters of unlawful crossings drop to about 2,000 per day. In addition, the use of presidential parole authority, which gives the president wider latitude to allow more undocumented immigrants into the country, would be curtailed. And the bill speeds up the asylum screening process significantly.

Lankford said he had hoped to release the bill earlier to get the process moving more quickly but the complexity of the language made that tricky: “The words matter.” The legislation is the most ambitious piece of immigration legislation to get serious congressional consideration in six years.

At the end of the new accelerated asylum process that the bill would create, migrants who are “unable to meet that threshold, they are removed from the country in an expedited manner,” Sinema said on Sunday.

“Individuals who are approached between ports of entry are currently paroled,” she added, meaning that the migrants are given a notice to appear and are released. But under the new bill, Sinema said, “those individuals will be taken into custody, where they will then, if they claim asylum, go through the initial protection determination interview.”

“If they do not claim asylum, they will be removed under expedited removal … So people who come through the desert, whether they are evading law enforcement or giving themselves up to law enforcement, if they’re not seeking asylum, they don’t have a claim to the country and will be removed,” she said.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries slammed Johnson in a statement Sunday, calling the speaker’s decision to instead put an Israel aid bill on the floor this week “a cynical attempt to undermine the Senate’s bipartisan effort, given that House Republicans have been ordered by the former president not to pass any border security legislation or assistance for Ukraine.”

Former President Donald Trump and conservatives in both chambers have repeatedly attacked the legislation as insufficient, instead calling on Biden to use his existing executive authorities to shut down the border.

Republicans, including Johnson, had demanded a package last fall that linked border policy changes to billions in foreign aid. But the speaker denies his new position is due to Trump, saying on Meet the Press: “He’s not calling the shots. I’m the one calling the shots.”