Speaker Johnson leads House GOP on a trip to a Texas border city as Ukraine aid hangs in the balance

EAGLE PASS, Texas (AP) — U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson is leading about 60 fellow Republicans in Congress on a visit Wednesday to the Mexican border as they demand hard-line immigration policies in exchange for backing President Joe Biden's emergency wartime funding request for Ukraine. The trip to Eagle Pass, Texas, comes as Senate negotiators keep plugging away in hopes of a bipartisan deal.

With the number of illegal crossings into the United States topping 10,000 on several days last month, the border city has been at the center of Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star, his nearly $10 billion initiative that has tested the federal government’s authority over immigration and elevated the political fight over the issue.

An agreement in the lengthy talks in Washington would unlock GOP support for Biden's $110 billion package for Ukraine, Israel and other U.S. security priorities. In meetings, Sens. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz, James Lankford, R-Okla., and Chris Murphy, D-Conn., are trying to make progress before Congress returns to Washington next week.

It is not known whether Johnson, who has called for “transformational” changes to border and immigration policies, would accept a bipartisan deal from the Senate. Johnson, R-La., has pointed to a House bill, passed in May without a single Democratic vote, that would build more of the border wall and impose new restrictions on asylum seekers. Democrats said the legislation was “cruel” and “anti-immigrant,” and Biden promised a veto.