Christian Smith
Senate Republicans are vowing to block a bipartisan border security deal from advancing on the floor, three months after Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) hailed it as a “huge success,” reflecting growing partisan tensions of an election year.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (DN.Y.) plans to hold a vote to advance it on Thursday, but no Republican senators have yet said they will vote for it, although it has been endorsed by the National Police Patrol Council. Border and by the US Chamber. of Commerce.
McConnell, who helped negotiate the border security package earlier this year, when it was attached to $61 billion in aid to Ukraine, on Tuesday he called Democrats’ plan to bring it back to the floor “a gimmick.” And he said it has no chance of approval in the Senate or the House.
McConnell told President Biden in a phone call Monday that Republicans will not vote for the border security deal they negotiated with Democrats earlier this year.
Instead, he urged Biden to resolve the border crisis through executive action, even though administration officials have said for months that limited authority stop border crossings without congressional action.
“I told him… Mr. President, you caused this problem. There is no legislation that allows the problem to be resolved. Why don’t you just allow what the previous administration was doing,” McConnell said, recounting his conversation with Biden.
Republicans point to Biden’s decision to halt construction of the border wall, expand parole for migrants into the country and end the Trump-era “Remain in Mexico” policy.
Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), the bill’s lead Republican negotiator, criticized Schumer’s plan to vote on the border security legislation as a piece of political theater designed to protect vulnerable incumbents like Sen. Jon Tester ( D-Mont.), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) and Bob Casey (D-Pa.).
Lankford said he would vote against moving the bill forward, reversing his position from February when he was one of four Republicans to vote in favor.
“This is not trying to accomplish something. It’s about messaging now. This is an attempt to poke at Republicans rather than actually trying to solve a problem,” Lankford said.
Lankford said he has not received any requests from Democrats to resume negotiations on the legislation, which would reform the nation’s asylum laws and give the president emergency power to close the border when migrant crossings average 4,000 per day.
Republicans have said they will vote to block the bill from coming up for debate because they don’t expect to have any chance of amending it with proposals to make it stronger.
“They are just trying to get political cover for some of their rulers who are on the wrong side of the issue with the American people,” said Republican Senate Whip John Thune (SD).
Thune said he expects an overwhelming number of Republicans to vote to block the bill.
“If you could actually get votes on amendments, that would be one thing, but he’s going to kill it,” Thune said of Schumer. “This is not a serious attempt to actually have a debate about this. In fact, this is, at this point, purely and simply a political maneuver.”
The other three Republican senators who voted to move forward with the border security agreement in early February — Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Mitt Romney (Utah) — said they were undecided about whether they would vote for it again.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who is competing with Thune to succeed McConnell as GOP leader at the end of the year, urged GOP colleagues to oppose it.
“It’s a joke, a bad joke,” he said, arguing that securing the border is “something Biden could do in [his] to have.”
“I have no confidence that if we pass a new law, he will enforce it when he has refused existing laws,” he said.
Schumer accuses fellow Republicans of following the orders of former President Trump, who urged Republican lawmakers earlier this year to oppose the deal because he wanted to keep the border a major issue before Election Day.
“Let us not forget that when this bill was being negotiated, Leader McConnell also supported the effort. He insisted that this has to happen as part of the [foreign aid] supplementary”, highlighted Schumer.
“It’s the same bipartisan bill that both sides negotiated for months this winter,” he said. “It’s strong, resilient and realistic.
“This is the same bipartisan bill that Republicans championed and then backed off when ordered to do so by President Trump [and] he turned around and then voted no”, he argued.
The biggest drama ahead of Thursday’s vote could be how many democrats are turning against the border security agreement now that it has little chance of being approved and is not linked to aid to Ukraine or Israel.
Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), who voted against the border security agreement in February, said he would vote no again and noted that it broke with the traditional Democratic position of calling for reforms to help migrants be accompanied by security measures. border. .
“I don’t vote,” he said. “Doubts, concerns about what is in the account. Bigger problem with what is not in the account.
“Several of our [Democratic] colleagues who supported this package a few months ago did so because that was the price of obtaining financing for Ukraine, and that is no longer the case. That’s not an insignificant difference.”
“The most problematic thing is what is not in the bill,” he added. “No Dreamer is helped. Not a single farm worker receives any relief or protection. No long-term residents of the United States who are undocumented are assisted here. This cannot be the new starting point for negotiations.”
