Senators unveil border package
Bill faces stiff resistance in House
WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans and Democrats on Sunday unveiled a $118.3 billion compromise bill to crack down on unlawful migration across the US border with Mexico and speed security aid to Ukraine, but the deal faces long odds in a Congress deeply divided over both issues.
The release of the agreement, struck after more than three months of near-daily talks among senators and Biden administration officials, counted as an improbable breakthrough on a policy matter that has bedeviled presidents of both parties and defied decades of efforts at compromise on Capitol Hill. President Biden, who last month promised he would shut down the border immediately if the measure became law, implored Congress on Sunday to pass the bill and send it to his desk as soon as possible.
“If you believe, as I do, that we must secure the border now, doing nothing is not an option,” he said in a statement, adding that Republicans have to decide: “Do they want to solve the problem? Or do they want to keep playing politics with the border?”
The bill features some of the most significant border security restrictions Congress has contemplated in years. They include making it more difficult to claim asylum, vastly expanding detention capacity, and effectively shutting down the border to new entrants if more than an average of 5,000 migrants per day try to cross over unlawfully in the course of a week, or more than 8,500 attempt to cross on any given day.
But Speaker Mike Johnson has already pronounced the bill “dead on arrival” in the Republican-controlled House. And with former president Donald Trump actively campaigning against the deal, it was not clear whether the measure could even make it out of the Democratic-led Senate, where it needs bipartisan backing to move forward.
Senator Chuck Schumer, the majority leader, said he planned to put the package to an initial vote Wednesday, in a critical test of its ability to survive.
“I know the overwhelming majority of senators want to get this done, and it will take bipartisan cooperation to move quickly,” Schumer said in a statement Sunday.
Senator Mitch McConnell, the minority leader, hailed the measure for including “direct and immediate solutions to the crisis at our southern border.”
The measure includes $20.2 billion to pay for improvements to border security, including hiring new asylum officers and border security agents, expanding the number of available detention beds, and increasing screenings for fentanyl and other illicit drugs. It also includes $60.1 billion for Ukraine, $14.1 billion in security assistance for Israel, and $10 billion in humanitarian aid for civilians in conflict zones.
But the bill falls short of several Republican demands, including ramping up border wall construction and limiting parole and related programs that allow migrants to live and work legally in the United States without visas while they await hearings on their immigration claims — sometimes for years.
Those omissions have alienated many Republicans who insisted on far more severe measures.
“Hard no,” Senator Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican, said on social media Sunday, adding in a second post, “This is an open-borders bill if I’ve ever seen one.”