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WASHINGTON — US Rep. Chip Roy has said he will use brinkmanship in the federal debt limit debate — and threaten the US will default on its loans — to push through his border security plan, which has drawn severe criticism from members of his own party for doing so.
“We’re going to have to use the debt ceiling and spending war in September to demand that [President Joe] Biden do the right thing,” Roy said on Fox News on Wednesday.
The Austin Republican introduced a bill earlier this year that would give the Secretary of Homeland Security the power to close border crossings – even to asylum seekers – until the US is able to detain all illegally crossing migrants. The law also allows attorneys general to sue the secretary if they find the administration is not adequately enforcing those policies — which would likely be the case in President Joe Biden’s administration.
The comments come as Congress considers a way forward on raising the federal debt ceiling, a critically-passed resolution that has long been used to push through partisan priorities and measures to control future spending. Unless the federal government raises the debt ceiling, as it has repeatedly done under bipartisan control for decades, it could exhaust its ability to service debt, resulting in a default that economists say would be ruinous for the nation and the US global economy.
The debt is the result of spending that has already been approved and approved by Congress in the past. The federal government already reached its debt limit last week, but the Ministry of Finance can use alternative measures to get hold of additional spending for the next few months.
Roy is using this lever to push his border bill, which is a non-starter for Democrats. The law has also been rebuffed by moderate Republicans, who fear it essentially bars access to asylum-seekers — a protected class of migrants who have the right to seek sanctuary once on American soil.
“The asylum process is broken and needs fundamental reform, but abolishing it is un-American,” US Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-San Antonio, told The Houston Chronicle. It has led to a verbal back-and-forth between the two members, who sit on opposite sides of the conservative spectrum, although Roy insists they remain on cordial terms.
Roy dismissed the criticism. He said he wants to protect asylum seekers but thinks they shouldn’t be released into the country to await their asylum hearings. Asylum seekers often wait years for their hearing, during which they remain in legal limbo but can remain in the country. Under former President Donald Trump, asylum seekers had to await their applications in Mexico, but Biden reversed that policy shortly after taking office.
“We will accept asylum applications, but you must be detained,” Roy told Fox News. “That’s what the law says.”
Roy said on The Joe Pags Show that he hopes to settle his disagreement with Gonzales and that his bill would achieve essentially the same goal as Title 42, a Trump-era measure being continued by the Biden administration and expels migrants – even those seeking asylum – under the guise of preventing the spread of COVID-19.
Democrats argue there is not enough space or money to accommodate the number of asylum seekers in the country and are pushing for more legal routes of entry into the country. But Republicans in the US House of Representatives are calling for a hardened border first before immigration reform can come on the table.
Roy’s bill would also expel any migrants who exceed the country’s detention capacity. Eleven other Texas Republicans signed the law into law.
The fight for the debt brake will probably only reach its peak in early summer, when the federal government has exhausted its alternative options for financing its own interest payments and interest payments. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and President Biden called on Congress to raise the debt ceiling quickly and unconditionally, saying it was too dangerous a negotiating tool to force any partisan needs.
Defaulting on the country’s debt would be a devastating blow to international confidence in US assets, leading to high interest rates and inflation. Both parties agree that default is not an option. The United States has never defaulted on its debt, despite the threat that it has hung in every Congress for years.
“The United States of America should never, ever, ever default on its debt,” U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said Wednesday at a news conference on the debt ceiling. “[But] We will use the debt ceiling as leverage to force real and meaningful structural reforms to solve the underlying problem.”
Roy is also using the debt ceiling fight to try to reduce federal funding to curb the country’s debt. He has urged balancing the budget over the next decade, beginning with the return of federal funding to fiscal 2022 levels next year.
Roy said he could also use September’s mediation process to try to enforce his border security law. Congress must pass legislation on appropriate appropriations for government each year or the federal government shuts down completely.
Roy was appalled that US Senate Republicans worked with Democrats to pass a bipartisan funding bill late last year, rather than kickstarting the appropriation process until Republicans took control of the House of Representatives. That “took away our leverage,” Roy said. He called on House Republicans to join him in opposing all priorities put forward by Senate Republicans who voted in favor of the spending bill last year, with US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy backing the idea signed.
