(Laphonza Butler became the newest member of the U.S. Senate when California Gov. Gavin Newsom named her to replace the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein. Scroll down for more.)

The Biden administration will expand by about 17 miles former President Trump’s wall on the Mexican border and begin to deport thousands of illegal Venezuelan immigrants, heretofore considered political and economic refugees, the White House announced Thursday (per The New York Times). Fueled by the likes of Fox News and other right-wing media outlets, President Biden has been under pressure to staunch an ever-growing surge of migrants at the border. 

Hard-line Republicans tied a border crackdown to funding for Ukraine’s war effort when the House passed a continuing resolution to fund the federal government to November 15. Passage of the CR ultimately led to Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) removal as speaker.

While Biden had denounced Trump’s border wall initiative during the 2020 presidential campaign, his administration announced it was waiving more than 20 federal laws and regulations to make way for construction of physical barriers along the U.S.-Mexican border in South Texas. 

The White House claims the administration’s hands are tied in the border wall issue, because Congress appropriated funds for its expansion in 2019. 

“The money was appropriated for the border wall. I tried to get them to reappropriate, to redirect that money,” Biden said in a press conference Thursday. “They didn’t. They wouldn’t.”Asked whether he thought such walls work to stem illegal immigration, Biden replied, “no.”

____________________________________________

Newsom Names Feinstein's Replacement

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has chosen EMILY’s List President Laphonza Butler (above) to fill the seat of the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) just two days after Feinstein died, Politico reports. The governor had promised to appoint a Black woman to fill the seat, after he appointed Alex Padilla to complete the Senate term of Kamala Harris when she became vice president in 2021, but the pledge has become a conundrum for Newsom and the Democratic Party. 

The replacement was not supposed to run for re-election next November, but according to the Politico item, Butler is to take the seat with no pre-conditions. Vice President Harris was expected to swear Butler in on Wednesday.

Just one of the three Democratic candidates who announced she would run for the seat after Feinstein earlier this year said this would be her last term, Rep. Barbara Lee, is a Black woman. The other two Democratic candidates for the party’s nomination, Rep. Adam Schiff and Rep. Katie Porter, are leading in a September poll by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, according to the poll’s co-sponsor, the Los Angeles Times. 

Schiff has 20% and Porter has 17%, to Lee’s 7%.

If Butler does indeed enter the ’24 race, Newsom’s choice will get him in even more hot water with the Democratic Party as he prepares a 2028 run for the White House.

On the Republican side, businessman James Bradley has 7% to attorney Eric Earley’s 5%. Retired Los Angeles Dodger and San Diego Padre Steve Garvey also is considering a run for the Senate.

•••

Should Laphonza Butler run for Senate in 2024? Email us at editors@thehustings.news.