Three months after Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell ( Ky. ) hailed it as a “huge success,” Senate Republicans are vowing to halt the development of a bipartisan border security agreement on the floor, in line with the rising partisan tensions of the election year.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N. Y. ) No Republican legislator has already indicated that they will vote for it, despite the fact that it was supported by the National Border Patrol Council and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Ideas to keep a ballot on Thursday to improve it.
McConnell, who assisted in the negotiations of the border security package earlier this year when it was tied to$ 61 billion in aid to Ukraine, described the Democrats ‘ plan to return it to the floor as” a gimmick.” Additionally, he claimed that neither the House nor the Senate have any chance of passing it.
In a phone call with Biden on Monday, McConnell stated that Republicans would never support the boundary security agreement they reached earlier this year.
He instead pleaded with Biden to take professional steps to address the border crisis, despite administration officials ‘ claims for months that they only have the power to halt border crossings without the approval of Congress.
” I said to him … Mr. President, you caused this problem. There’s no legislation that allows the problem to get fixed. McConnell questioned why not simply permit what the past leadership was doing.
Republicans are pointing to Biden’s decision to stop development of the boundary wall, increase the parole of migrants into the country, and stop the Trump- era” Live in Mexico” policy.
Sen. James Lankford ( R- Okla. ), the lead Republican negotiator of the bill, bashed Schumer’s plan to vote on the border security , legislation , as a piece of political theater intended to protect vulnerable incumbents, such as Sens. Jon Tester ( D- Mont. ), Sherrod Brown ( D- Ohio ), Jacky Rosen ( D- Nev. ) and Bob Casey ( D- Pa. ).
Lankford said he would oppose passing the bill, going back to what he had done in February, when just four Republicans had the right to do so.
” This is not trying to accomplish anything. Now it’s about communication. Instead of attempting to solve a problem, Lankford said,” this is trying to poke Republicans.”
Democrats have not contacted Lankford to resume negotiations on the legislation, which would change the country’s asylum laws and grant the president the executive authority to close the border when migrant crossings reach 4, 000 per day, Lankford said.
Republicans said they would vote to prevent the bill from being discussed because they do n’t think they have any chance to change it with changes to strengthen it.
Senate Republican Whip John Thune ( S. D. ) stated that” they’re just trying to get political cover for some of their incumbents who are on the wrong side of the issue with the American people.”
Thune stated that he anticipates a sizable majority of Republicans to cast ballots to oppose the bill.
” If you could actually find act vote, it would be one factor, but he’ll opened that down”, Thune said of Schumer. This is not a major effort to truly question this. This is actually, right then, purely and simply a political prank”.
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 will face off against Thune to take over as GOP leader at the end of the year, pleaded with GOP colleagues to oppose it.
” It’s a joke. A bad joke”, he said, arguing that securing the border is” something that Biden could do on ]his ] own”.
He said,” I have no confidence that if we pass a new law, he will carry it into effect when he has rejected existing laws.”
Schumer accuses his Democratic colleagues of following the directions of former president Trump, who earlier this year urged GOP lawmakers to reject the deal because he wanted to keep the frontier as a big problem prior to Election Day.
” Come not forget, when this act was being negotiated, Leader McConnell was likewise supportive of the work. He insisted this has to happen as part of the]foreign help ] supplemental”, Schumer pointed out.
” It’s the same bipartisan act both sides negotiated for months this spring”, he said. ” It’s powerful, hard and practical.
He argued,” This is the same bipartisan bill Democrats pushed for then backed ahead when they received orders from President Trump,” and he proposed a face-to-face debate before voting no.
The biggest uncertainty ahead of Thursday’s vote may be how many Democrats will vote against the border security agreement now that it has little chance of passing and is n’t tied to aid to Israel or Ukraine.
Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif. ), who voted against the border security agreement in February, said he would vote no again and that it went against the traditional Democratic stance of calling for reforms to be used to replace border security measures.
” I’m a little ballot, “he said”. Issues, concerns about what’s in the act. Bigger concern with what’s not in the act.
” Several of our]Democratic ] colleagues who supported this package a couple months ago did so because it was the price of getting funding for Ukraine, and that’s no longer the case. That’s not an negligible change”.
” Most difficult is what’s not in the bill”, he added. ” Not a second Thinker is helped. Never a single association gets any reduction or protection. No long-term residents of the United States who are undocumented are assisted below. This cannot be the new starting point for dialogue”.
