MAGA Congressman Byron Donalds (R-FL) slammed a new Biden administration reference to “newcomers” in a Biden White House Fact Sheet on the impact of the negotiated Senate bipartisan border bill.
Donalds, sharing a post by the House Republicans X account, suggested replacing “newcomers” with “illegal aliens” — and provided his semantics reasoning.
(The House Republicans contend that Biden’s friendly term for undocumented migrants is further proof that “Biden isn’t serious about stopping the illegal immigration.”)
“ILLEGAL” – Forbidden by law.
“ALIEN” – Terminology in Title 8 of U.S. Code to describe a person who is not a citizen or national of the United States.
If a noncitizen enters the United States unlawfully & without U.S. authorization, they are by definition, an “ILLEGAL ALIEN” https://t.co/9myHlafhMl
— Congressman Byron Donalds (@RepDonaldsPress) February 29, 2024
Defining the words in his own chosen definition of the migrants reaching the United States, Donalds writes:
“ILLEGAL” – Forbidden by law. “ALIEN” – Terminology in Title 8 of U.S. Code to describe a person who is not a citizen or national of the United States.
Rep. Donalds
“If a noncitizen enters the United States unlawfully & without U.S. authorization,” Byron concludes, “they are by definition, an ‘ILLEGAL ALIEN’.”
Donalds is one of the Congress members that the White House accuses of playing “politics at the expense of border policy” after noting that the bill “received support from the Border Patrol Union, the Chamber of Commerce, the South Texas Alliance of Cities, and the Wall Street Journal.”
[NOTE: Sen. James Lankford (R-OK), who helped negotiate the bill, faced threats and was censured by Republicans for participating with Democrats in the bipartisan border deal negotiations.]
This backfired spectacularly.
FOX: Why give Biden this (win) in an election year?
Lankford then breaks down how the bill *would* solve a lot of the issues, and reminds the host that they all took an oath to the constitution, even in election years.
— Angry Staffer (@Angry_Staffer) January 28, 2024
Citing proposed increases in border patrol agents, asylum officers, ICE detention capacity, and fentanyl detectors, the White House claims the bill would “make our country safer, make our border more secure, and treat people fairly and humanely while preserving legal immigration, consistent with our nation’s values.”
The wording that Donalds objects to occurs in the penultimate paragraph of the White House release, which states the bill contains “$1.4 billion for cities and states who are providing critical services to newcomers.”