US Senate unveils $118b bill on border security, assistance for Ukraine, Israel
WASHINGTON — The United States Senate unveiled a $118 billion bipartisan border security bill on Sunday that would also provide aid to Ukraine and Israel, but it promptly slammed into opposition from the House of Representatives.
“I urge Congress to come together and swiftly pass this bipartisan agreement,” US President Joe Biden said, also praising the migration measures in the bill, which took months to negotiate.
However, House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson declared it “dead on arrival” if it reaches his chamber.
“This bill is even worse than we expected, and won’t come close to ending the border catastrophe the president has created,” he said in a statement on X, formerly Twitter.
But Democratic and Republican Senate backers of the wide-ranging US border security and foreign military aid bill pledged to push ahead.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said he would take steps to hold an initial vote on the bill on Wednesday.
If the bill were to become law, it would mark the most significant changes in US immigration and border security in decades, Reuters reported.
Some Democrats are angry that the measure does nothing to provide a pathway to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented people who have lived in the US for many years, including “Dreamer” immigrants who were brought in as children.
Independent Senator Kyrsten Sinema told reporters the legislation would secure the US southern border, including by requiring the Department of Homeland Security to temporarily “shut down” the frontier to most migrants if there are an average of more than 5,000 crossing attempts per day over seven days.
In addition to $20.23 billion for border security, the bill included $60 billion to support Ukraine in its conflict with Russia, $14.1 billion in security assistance for Israel, and $2.44 billion to the US Central Command and the conflict in the Red Sea, according to figures from Senator Patty Murray, who chairs the Senate’s Appropriations Committee.
An additional $10 billion would provide humanitarian assistance for civilians in conflict zones including in Ukraine, Gaza and the West Bank, although the bill includes a provision barring its funds from going to the UN agency for Palestinians, known as the UNRWA.
Request stalled
That request has been stalled by House Republicans’ insistence that it be tied to a shift in immigration policy.
Mitch McConnell, the top Senate Republican, has supported the negotiations, saying Republicans would not get a better deal under a Republican White House.
“The Senate must carefully consider the opportunity in front of us and prepare to act,” McConnell said.
Schumer said in a news conference that he had never worked so closely with Senate colleague McConnell as on the bill. “At many occasions, we thought the negotiations had fallen apart,” Schumer said.
Nonetheless, right-wing Republicans are skeptical of the new Senate bill.
“Here’s what the people pushing this ‘deal’ aren’t telling you: It accepts 5,000 illegal immigrants a day and gives automatic work permits to asylum recipients — a magnet for more illegal immigration,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said on X.
Other congressional Republicans have said Biden can enact many of the changes they want to immigration policy through executive action, though they had previously called for legislative action.
Immigration is the second-largest concern for US citizens, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll published on Wednesday, and is a top issue for Republicans specifically. The US Border Patrol arrested about 2 million migrants at the border in fiscal year 2023.
House Republicans are also pushing ahead with an effort to impeach Biden’s top border official, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.