WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats plan to force a bipartisan vote Thursday border security package that Republicans blocked earlier this yearan attempt to change the script on immigration policy, a major weakness for President Joe Biden.
The legislationIt is being debated by Republican and Democratic senators designed to reduce border crossings, raise the bar for migrants to qualify for asylum and quickly turn back those who don’t. It gives the president the power to close the border if certain triggers are met. If passed, the law would be the most far-reaching immigration restrictions in decades. Biden endorsed the bill.
But the former president Donald Trump helped repeal the law earlier this year, and Republicans say they will block it again.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., alerted members on the floor of Thursday’s vote, calling it “the strongest, most comprehensive border security bill we’ve seen in a generation.”
“This week, Republicans will have another chance to do the right thing,” Schumer said Monday. “People agree that the status quo cannot continue. “Our southern border needs more resources and our immigration system needs serious overhaul.”
“All those who say we need to act on the border will have a chance to show this week that they are serious about fixing the border,” Schumer said. “We’re going to need bipartisan support if we have any hope of getting this bill done.”
It would need 60 votes to advance and is expected to fail due to overwhelming Republican opposition.
Bringing the bipartisan bill back to the table is part of the Democrats’ push wider election year strategy to continue the crime related to immigration — an issue that bothered the party in the past. In recent weeks, key Biden administration officials and top Democratic lawmakers have discussed voting on bills the GOP will oppose and weighed various executive actions Biden could take. This month, the administration proposed a new rule speeding up the asylum process.
Republicans are vowing to derail the legislation, as they have done before, dismissing the vote less than six months before the November election as an exercise in political messaging. Even Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn. and Sen. James Lankford, Republican of Oklahoma, who discussed the original border package with Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, vows to vote no.
“This is trying to score political points rather than actually trying to solve the problem,” Lankford told reporters. “There was no attempt to sit down and say, ‘Well, what went wrong last time?’ Let’s figure it out.”
Schumer said the GOP’s opposition to the bill shows the party doesn’t care about border security and is instead trying to protect the issue as a political weapon for Trump to use in the 2024 election. Trump has made immigration and an overcrowded border the centerpiece of his campaign, promising to crack down.
The impasse over immigration reform is nothing new, and the blame game over competing House and Senate proposals has been going on for months. After Murphy, Lankford and Sinema announced a landmark immigration deal in February, Schumer packaged it with critical aid for foreign allies, including Ukraine and Israel, and tried to push it through the upper chamber.
Senate divide equally A filibuster that left more than 60 needed to not advance the national security and border package. Only four Republicans voted for it. Schumer switched sides for procedural reasons so that the four Democrats could bring the bill up again. The final vote was 49-51.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who helped draft the deal and signed it, voted against In February after it became clear that most Republicans would reject it.
At the time, the border bill was packaged with billions of dollars in US aid to Ukraine and Israel. Republicans had initially demanded tougher asylum and border laws as a condition for supporting foreign aid, but eventually agreed. Pass the Ukraine and Israel measures with an independent bill.
The Senate will first vote this week on a procedural proposal to advance the border package as a stand-alone bill under the 60-vote threshold.
Although unlikely to pass the House, Speaker Mike Johnson’s GOP leadership team issued a scathing joint statement arguing the Senate vote was a frivolous effort to protect the border. Sumer was called to leave a tougher, border bill that passed the House of RepresentativesKnown as HR 2 without Democratic support, it is instead on the Senate floor.
“Leader Schumer is trying to cover his vulnerable constituents by voting for a bill that has already failed in the Senate because it would codify much of Biden’s disastrous open border policy that created this crisis in the first place,” he said. the leaders said. “If it gets to the House, the bill will be dead on arrival.”
Julie Tsirkin, Ali Vitaly and Syedah Asghar contributed.