Washington — The Senate is scheduled to vote on Thursday. Bipartisan border security measures It was blocked by Republicans earlier this year after former President Donald Trump voiced his opposition.
The bill is likely to fail for a second time, but with polls showing voters critical of President Biden’s handling of immigration issues, Democrats will likely try to use Republican resistance to sway public opinion in their favor. Border security is a central theme of the Republican platform heading into the November election.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a floor speech on Wednesday: “We’re going to find out who really wants to actually fix the border and who just likes to talk about the border issue.” .
Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, argued that Republicans who voted against the bill “forfeit the right to debate the border and make it a partisan political issue.”
“I’m angry because I got an email from a Republican colleague saying, ‘Listen, you guys need to get serious about the border issue,'” Schatz said Wednesday at a news conference with several Democratic colleagues. Ta. “Some of the Republicans I respect most took a very strong stand with us, and we listened. We wrote a bill that we don’t like, but it’s tough enough to get the job done. But , they abandoned that plan because Donald Trump told them to do so.”
Border Bill
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After months of negotiations, Republicans and Democrats a compromise was reached If passed in February, it would have been the first comprehensive overhaul of border security policy in decades. The bill would give the president broad powers to restrict illegal border crossings and tighten asylum rules.
Republicans have long argued the measure was necessary to support additional aid for Ukraine, but President Trump urged allies to vote against it, and it fell short of the 60 votes needed to pass the bill in the Senate. Congress then voted to end it. Approved further aid to UkraineIt will be implemented as part of a broader foreign aid package with Republican support.
According to reports, Mr. Biden met with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) on Monday to “stop playing politics and get this bipartisan border bill done.” He instructed them to act quickly to pass the bill. White House summary of the conversation.
Speaking to reporters, senior Biden administration officials urged congressional Republicans to support the border security bill and not to make immigration a “politicized issue.”
“The American people have shown time and time again that they don’t want mass raids, they don’t want family separations, they don’t want children locked in cages. They want secure borders and legal immigration opportunities for people who want to come to America to enrich this country, and that’s what this is about. President Biden is pushing for this, and a bipartisan agreement will get us moving forward,” the official said. “Now it’s up to Republicans in Congress: Do they want to actually do something to solve the problem, or do they want to use it as a political issue?”
House Republican leaders said earlier this week that the bill “Dead on arrival“Even if it passes the Senate, it won’t pass the House.”
The compromise was negotiated by Sens. James Lankford, Republican of Oklahoma, Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, and Kyrsten Sinema, an independent from Arizona.
Lankford, one of four Republicans who voted to advance the bill in February, said he would not support it this time, calling it a “prop.”
“Let’s keep working until we actually solve the problem,” he told reporters Wednesday. “Don’t just bring up things you know won’t pass.”
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Connecticut, pushed back against criticism that the vote was done solely to reinforce Democrats’ message on the border.
“This is not just a message vote. It will deliver tangible, tangible results for border security,” Blumenthal told reporters Wednesday.
Speaking on the floor of the House later that day, Blumenthal said he declined to support the bill in February because Republicans wanted to campaign on the border issue.
“My Republican colleagues are now [to] “Those who say we’re here because of politics are saying, yes, you shouldn’t vote for it because of their politics, because of the political advantage that a presumptive presidential candidate can gain from keeping it an issue,” he said.
But as Democrats try to shift the blame to Republicans, they are also losing support within their own party. Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey said in a statement that he would not vote for the bill because it “contains several provisions that are at odds with our shared American values” and “misses important elements that would make a significant contribution to solving the serious immigration challenges facing our country.”
Alan He, Kristin Brown and Camilo Montoya Galvez contributed to this reporting.
