House Republicans are signaling they now want to include border legislation in their list of demands for a debt ceiling deal.

Border policy has entered the debt limit chat.

Key GOP lawmakers are signaling they want border policies in the mix as congressional leadership and the White House try to negotiate a debt ceiling deal, the day after Republicans passed a sweeping border and immigration bill. It was a GOP wishlist that included restarting construction of the U.S.-Mexico border wall and placing new restrictions on asylum seekers.

“We passed the bill that I think does the job. … And by the way, I think this is now a central part of any debt ceiling or spending debate for the remainder of the year,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) said in an interview on Friday.

“Every day that the President continues to dilly dally, in my mind, the price goes up, not down. … You want a debt ceiling increase? You want to go fund the operations of government? Then fix the damn border, Mr. President,” Roy added.

And it’s not just Roy. One of McCarthy’s top deputies, Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.), pointed to the border bill and said Republicans are “bringing more ideas to the table.”

“The House has now added more to the mix,” Graves said in a separate interview Friday. “With yesterday passing the immigration bill — which doesn't just secure America, doesn't just save lives from fentanyl overdose, but also saves tens of billions of dollars in wasted money as a result of this administration's careless border policy.”

Republicans aren’t yet demanding specifics on which border provisions they want to see in a potential debt ceiling deal, instead pointing to their recently passed bill more broadly. That, of course, has no chance at passing the Senate.

But Roy, who said he wasn’t going to negotiate publicly, said that he was “not alone” in viewing it as a key issue in the negotiations now. He said they’d also want to bring it up during talks about government spending, with a shutdown deadline at the end of September.

Reminder: Washington needs to raise the debt ceiling in the coming weeks or risk a catastrophic default that would wreak havoc on the world economy. Treasury has said the country could default as soon as June 1.

About those $avings: Because the bill would limit the eligibility of migrants to receive asylum or parole in the U.S., the bill would reduce spending mostly because fewer people would be using federal benefits — such as health or food programs, according to the Congressional Budget Office. (While the bill would overall reduce spending, CBO also predicted the bill would decrease revenues, with the GOP’s mandatory use of E-Verify expected to lower the number of people paying payroll taxes.)

https://www.politico.com/minutes/congress/05-12-2023/tying-border-to-debt/