House Speaker Calls Bill 'Dead' As GOP Senators Defect En masse Ahead of Wednesday's Vote.
A bipartisan package of border reforms and funding for Ukraine and Israel came close to collapse on February 5 after , the House speaker called it “dead,” former President Donald Trump attacked the GOP chief negotiator, and Senate GOP leadership said it would likely vote against proceeding with the bill this week.
The Washington Post writes about this.
Rapid decline in support in the Senate
A $118 billion bill calling for sweeping changes to the nation's asylum system and a mechanism to effectively close the border to most migrants when border crossings are particularly high was unveiled after months of negotiations on the evening of February 4 , after many of his GOP opponents mistakenly called the bill a boon for migrants.
After a closed session of Republican senators on the evening of February 5, chief GOP negotiator Sen. James Lankford (D-Okla.) said he believed Republicans would likely unite to block the legislation on February 7, and that he himself might will even vote against him.
Sen. John Thune, the second-ranking Republican, said everyone agreed that Wednesday's expected procedural vote was too early.
Some Republican senators, including Lankford, said the conference was discussing whether more time would be needed to consider amendments to the bill after the vote was blocked. But immigration reform has proven so toxic to Republican lawmakers that reaching consensus on changing the bill any time soon seems unlikely.
The precipitous decline in support in the Senate reflects a reversal of politics on the border deal among Republicans that began weeks ago when Trump began criticizing it. The conservative Border Patrol Officers Union endorsed the agreement Monday, saying it “codifies into law powers that U.S. Border Patrol agents have never had in the past.”
And immigrant and refugee rights groups, including Amnesty International USA, have criticized the law as containing “the most extreme anti-immigrant proposals this country has seen in the last 100 years.”
But a growing number of Republicans on Capitol Hill believe the law is too lenient.
House Speaker Mike Johnson and his leadership team, who had originally demanded that House-passed border reforms be tied to funding for Ukraine, laid out their grievances in a joint statement, saying the legislation would “fail” to secure the border and would encourage more illegal immigration. .
“Any consideration of this Senate bill in its current form is a waste of time,” they wrote. -He is DEAD upon arrival at the House of Representatives. We urge the US Senate to reject it.”
Trump included the border issue in his 2024 campaign message and told Republican lawmakers not to support the bill even before negotiators released its text.
Trump's position
“This is a very bad bill for his career,” Trump said of Lankford, a top Republican negotiator who is one of the conference's most conservative members, in an interview with Dan Bongino on Feb. 5.
“He's focused on the campaign,” Lankford said when asked to respond to Trump's comments on CNN. “I'm going to do everything I can to protect the nation as quickly as I can, regardless of the election cycle.”
Trump and his allies have incorrectly characterized the bill, which would also hire thousands of additional shelter and border patrol workers and expand the number of detention facilities, as codifying even more illegal migration into the country.
Lankford called the distortions “ridiculous” in an interview with Fox News on Monday, but several Republican senators said the characterizations have already damaged the base.
McConnell's support
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), whose staff helped negotiate the agreement and who is trying to find a way to persuade his members to vote for aid to Ukraine and Israel, expressed his support , as well as moderate Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine).
“My colleagues know where I stand,” McConnell said earlier Monday. “They know as well as I do that America's adversaries in Moscow, Beijing and Tehran are working together to blow us up. And they know that it is finally time for the Senate to respond with force.”
Who's against
But as of Monday evening, at least 20 Republican senators had announced their opposition to the agreement, and two Democratic senators criticized it as too “draconian” for asylum seekers. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Va.) has issued a statement saying the United States should not provide another “dollar” for Israel's war in Gaza, but it is unclear whether he will vote against the entire package.
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The bill needs 60 votes to get past the first procedural vote, which Majority Leader Charles Schumer said will take place Wednesday. The House is set to vote this week on a separate bill for $17.6 billion in additional aid to Israel, which is intended to pressure the Senate to scale back the larger package. The White House released a statement Monday saying President Biden would veto the legislation if it reaches his desk.
Republicans who did not vote include such right-wing leaders as Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), who called for new Senate Republican leadership – an attempt on McConnell's life – and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who called the agreement “CRAZY” in a social media post . But much more telling of the potential future bill are comments from some senators who are at the center of the Republican conference or have ties to Republican leadership.
Sen. Johnny Ernst (R-Iowa), a member of the leadership, said the border provision was “at risk.”
“I wish we had given James [Lankford] the benefit of the doubt to look at the text before we started taking an opposition position,” Ernst said. “But despite this, it already exists, it has already influenced the public, and we must take this into account as we move forward.”
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a McConnell ally, said he had “questions and serious concerns” about the legislation, signaling problems with moving it forward in the Senate. Sen. James Risch (Idaho), the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a defense hawk, hinted at his opposition in a social media post where he called for enforcement of existing laws at the border and a stop to “this madness.”
Senator Steve Daines (D-Montana), chairman of the National Republican Senate Committee and a member of the leadership team, also said he opposes the bill.
Some Republicans noted what they believe is a “loophole” in the border emergency declaration that would allow the president to stop the border closure during a national security emergency, while others pointed to the fact that that the legislation would speed up the issuance of work permits for asylum seekers who pass a new, higher threshold, among other problems.
“Tensions are very high,” said one Senate Republican aide. — This bill is not going anywhere. Unfortunately, he only splits the Republicans and sends Lankford to an island he doesn't deserve.”
Another Republican aide said many at the conference believed an immigration deal was always doomed to fail, given the intensity of GOP support for the issue and the need for at least partial compromise with Democrats to achieve arrangements.
“You cannot kill something that was never alive,” said the assistant.
Other Democratic lawmakers also expressed their dissatisfaction with the bill.
“We are deeply concerned that the President is considering advancing the Trump-era immigration policies that Democrats fought so hard to oppose—and that he himself campaigned against—in exchange for helping our allies, which is already supported by Republicans,” said Senator Alex Padilla (Calif.) and Representative Nanette Barragan (Calif.), head of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.
Immigrant rights groups also criticized the law.
“As a candidate, Joe Biden promised to return to humane immigration policies, but as president he has repeatedly embraced former President Trump's brutal policies,” said Amy Fisher, director of refugee and migrant rights at Amnesty. International USA.
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