Press Releases

Congressman Glenn Grothman (WI-06) released the following statement after voting no on sending unaccountable aid to Ukraine and yes on sending aid to Israel.

“For years now, I have been a proponent of fixing our broken immigration system and securing our porous southern border,” said Grothman. “I am disappointed that this week, aid to Ukraine took priority over the fight to get a handle on our open southern border. I felt that we should have negotiated harder over the spending bills passed last month to secure significant, consequential policy changes at the border, but we did not fight at that time.

“This package of legislation represented the last chance we had to make a stand on the border. It is apparent that President Biden will not do anything to reduce the over 200,000 migrants coming here illegally on a monthly basis—which is the biggest crisis of my lifetime. The only way to stop this influx right now is to force the Biden Administration to the table and one more time, Congress passed on that opportunity. Our last chance was to negotiate with the aid to Ukraine and unfortunately, not enough Republicans were willing to do it. It is a little bit galling because our leadership team had made public proclamations about using Ukraine aid to force the Biden Administration to do something about the border, but now that will not happen. We will now have to wait for a new President to stop the unprecedented flow of illegal migrants crossing the border.

“I have voted to support Ukraine in the past but since then have repeatedly expressed frustration in the lack of interest by the Biden Administration in working towards a peace agreement. All wars end eventually. Ukraine has the second lowest birth rate in the world and Russia also has a problem with too few young people. Both countries should be particularly interested in finding a way to end this war and there appears to be no effort made in this direction.

“I was happy to vote for funding to our ally Israel. It is essential to Israel’s existence that they succeed in eradicating Hamas, who orchestrated the October 7 attack that killed over 1,200 people. This funding was of particular importance given the recent unprecedented attacks by Iran and the fact that so much of the aid is going to replenish Israel’s defense systems, including the Iron Beam, Iron Dome, and David’s Sling that have been crucial over the last two weeks. We must stand strongly with our ally and support Israel’s right to defend itself.”

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