Gary Franks: Border crisis solution — forget Biden and Johnson

It is becoming increasingly obvious that we are turning to the wrong people to solve our invasion problem at our southern border.

President Joe Biden, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and the Democrats have little to zero interest in stopping the invasion. And unfortunately, the competency level of some Republicans is suspect, while there are too many good Republicans leaving Congress.

The result? We spend trillions of dollars on intelligence, homeland and national defense to protect America from the “bad guys,” yet we allow millions of folks, thousands of them on the terrorist watch list and known criminals — yes, true bad guys — to simply walk across our borders unimpeded.

But there is someone who has claimed he could fix the problem: Mexico’s president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. In a March interview on CBS’s “60 Minutes,” he gave what I would call “his peaceful terms of surrender” for the United States. Sounds like extortion, but you can decide for yourself.

He called on the United States to “commit $20 billion a year to poor countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, lift sanctions on Venezuela, end the Cuban embargo and legalize millions of law-abiding Mexicans living in the U.S.”

Only then, he said, he would work to stop the flow of migrants, who I believe have been weaponized to draw upon our precious resources that we already must borrow money to pay for.

If we do not want to embrace Mexico’s demands or negotiate something better for the United States, we should treat them like the frenemies to America that they truly have been over the decades.

I wonder what former presidents like Reagan, Eisenhower, H.W. Bush or even Truman would do.

One thing for sure, those military minded presidents would not blame the other political party for not doing its job to protect America. They would follow the Constitution, which says the commander-in-chief must protect each state from an invasion, and they would do something. Doing nothing would not be an option, which Biden’s failed administration has opted for.

Following a vote in the House over the weekend to pass on $95 billion in aid to other countries and our defense industrial base, Democratic members of Congress waved celebratory flags in the chamber. But they were not American flags. The money (that we technically do not have, and will be added to our deficit spending, which is not financially sustainable) is not going to Americans. America has failed to protect its borders while helping other countries protect theirs.

The issue here is not about foreign aid and support for Israel’s security, humanitarian aid for the people of Gaza, support against a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan or military support for Ukraine. Assistance to our allies and for democracies around the world is vital to our national interests.

Will the money we send fuel the fire for protracted wars or protect our allies from destruction? I believe the latter will prove to be true. Regardless, if we do not better manage these affairs, we will be right back here in a few months looking at worse scenarios.

The three-year plus border crisis at the Mexican border is an invasion of America. Most Americans concur. Let us understand its magnitude.

First, we must comprehend the fact that in the 21st century we have new weapons. Bows and arrows, guns, bombs, chemical weapons, etc. have all been replaced to a degree using computers/the internet/cyberspace, sanctions, embargoes and yes, the use of massive numbers of migrants who are being weaponized. All of the above can destroy a society. The volume of people crossing our border equals a D-Day type of invasion for every month of the Biden administration.

And what about House Speaker Mike Johnson? When the majority of your conference members do not vote with you, then you are not by definition the leader of the conference. When you tell your Republican conference and the American people while standing at the Mexican border that you will not allow funding to go to other countries before the border invasion is addressed, but then you do the opposite, you must resign, unless you cannot seamlessly be replaced.

Yes, I do love gymnastics, but not when it involves politicians. Johnson’s flip on this issue would earn him a gold medal at the Olympics.

To walk into a negotiation with the Democrats wearing a suit and tie and then leave it without your tie, jacket, or shirt, well — that is not how negotiations should go. The speaker won none of the GOP’s priorities on the border.

Biden can help Johnson in return for Johnson’s help. Biden can return America to the policies of former Presidents Donald Trump or Barack Obama regarding the border and send a significant number of troops to protect it. Biden can use executive orders to help solve the problem.

Unless Biden saves Johnson, America needs a new speaker of the House. Note, to do so however, the following must be followed and assured: Whoever can gain the “majority” of the Republican conference should receive unanimous Republican support on the House floor. This is change without chaos and without the help of the Democrats.

If every member of the Republican conference cannot make that basic commitment, then keeping Johnson as speaker is the only option until January 2025.

Will someone at least give the Mexican president a call? If he can solve our border crisis, we should do what we can to make that happen using carrots or sticks.