WASHINGTON — Facing a growing torrent of intraparty criticism, Senate Republicans on Monday resisted advancing a bipartisan proposal intended to clamp down on illegal border crossings, signaling a likely defeat in Congress that would leave leaders with no clear path to approve wartime aid for Ukraine.
In a dramatic turnaround, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell recommended to GOP senators in a closed-door meeting that they vote no on the first procedural vote Wednesday, according to two people familiar with the meeting who were not authorized to speak publicly about it and instead spoke anonymously.
The McConnell about-face came just hours after the Kentucky Republican had urged colleagues on the Senate floor that “it’s now time for Congress to take action.”
“Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma, the chief Republican negotiator on the bill, implored his GOP colleagues to take another look at the legislation and consider the ramifications beyond the presidential election.”
McConnell has struggled to marshal his conference to move on the package of $118 billion package of border-enforcement policy and funding for Ukraine, Israel and other U.S. allies.
Senate negotiators on Sunday night released the text of the bill, expressing hope that the details would win over skeptics. The carefully negotiated deal represented a rightward election-year tilt in Senate negotiations over border measures, yet the backlash was intense from conservatives.
They savaged the border-policy proposal as insufficient, with former President Donald Trump leading the charge — and with much of the criticism hitting long before the bipartisan bill’s language had been revealed.
From the archives (January 2024): Bipartisan deal on border and Ukraine at risk of collapse as Trump presses Senate Republicans to walk away
“This is a gift to the Democrats. And this sort of is a shifting of the worst border in history onto the shoulders of Republicans,” Trump, the likely Republican presidential nominee, said Monday on “The Dan Bongino Show.” “They want this for the presidential election so they can now blame the Republicans for the worst border in history.”
Many Senate Republicans — even those who have expressed support for Ukraine aid and the contours of the border-policy changes — raised doubts Monday they would support advancing the package.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has planned to call a key test vote Wednesday.
“The actions here in the next few days are an inflection point in history,” the New York Democrat said in a floor speech. “The security of our nation and of the world hangs in the balance.”
See: Biden says he’d shut down border and sort out migrant surge if he had the tools. What does he mean?
Schumer worked closely with McConnell on the border-security package after the Republican leader had insisted on the pairing as a way to win support for Ukraine aid. The Democratic leader urged his colleagues across the aisle to “tune out the political noise” and vote yes.
“For years, our Republican colleagues have demanded we fix the border. And all along they said it should be done through legislation. Only recently did they change that when it looks like we might actually produce legislation,” Schumer said.
Republicans expressed deep divisions on the legislation. During a 90-minute, closed-door meeting of Republicans on Monday evening, the discussion turned to shouting.
“‘For years, our Republican colleagues have demanded we fix the border. And all along they said it should be done through legislation. Only recently did they change that when it looks like we might actually produce legislation.’”
“Time out!” exclaimed Sen. Joni Ernst if Iowa, a retired lieutenant general in the Iowa Army National Guard, during one exchange. “At ease!”
GOP senators emerged saying they were not likely to vote to move forward during the Wednesday test vote and wanted to debate changes to the bill — a demand that would further delay any definitive action on the legislation.
“I think there’s a very real concern that there hasn’t been adequate time,” said South Dakota Sen. John Thune, the No. 2–ranking Republican leader. “I think the Wednesday vote is going to be, for most of our members, too early.”
Sen. Roger Wicker, a Mississippi Republican, predicted that the Wednesday tally would fall short of the 60 votes needed. After exiting an earlier meeting with fellow GOP leaders, he told reporters, “I think the proposal is dead.”
From the archives (January 2024): Biden urges Congress to pass border bill as House speaker suggests it may be ‘dead on arrival’
Also read (January 2023): ‘We need more people,’ says Fed’s Powell. What does that mean for immigration reform?
Both McConnell and Schumer have emphasized for months the urgency of approving tens of billions of dollars for Ukraine’s ongoing defense against the unprovoked full-scale invasion by Russia, saying that the U.S.’s ability to buttress democracies around the world was at stake. Yet with the funding stuck in Congress, the Defense Department has halted shipments of ammunition and missiles to Kyiv.
Biden, speaking to reporters at a Las Vegas meeting with members of a culinary union, noted that Congress has not approved his funding requests for more Border Patrol agents and immigration judges to handle the number of migrants. “We need help,” he said. “Why won’t they give me the help?”
“Everything in that bipartisan bill gives me control,” Biden said, adding that he was disappointed the border legislation does not address the fate of immigrants who as children entered the U.S. without authorization, known as “Dreamers.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson, amid pressure from Trump and allies that the legislation risked handing the Biden administration a win on the border with just nine months till the 2024 presidential election, had already called the proposal “dead on arrival” if it were to pass the Senate, but Biden urged the Republican speaker to “pay attention to what the Senate’s doing.”
Senate independent Angus King, who caucuses with Democrats, took issue with an emerging critique that senators had been given insufficient time to study the bill’s 370 pages.
Those Republican critics, King said Tuesday in MSNBC interview, are conveniently ignoring that it came with a 19-page, section-by-section summary that “you can read in about 15 minutes.”
King said James Lankford of Oklahoma, who led the Republican delegation to the bipartisan border talks and reportedly spent Monday seeking to dissuade supporters within his party from defecting to the Trump bloc, is one of the Senate’s most conservative and capable members and arguably knows more about border needs than anyone in the chamber.
The White House has said Biden would veto a House bill sends military aid only to Israel, criticizing it as a “cynical political maneuver” that excludes funding for Ukraine, the border and other national-security needs, including Taiwan, increasingly at risk of a show of force from mainland China.
Key Words (August 2023): Quotable Christie says China’s Xi is gauging U.S. resolve in support of Ukraine’s democracy and independence
Johnson, along with the rest of the House’s top GOP leaders, said in a joint statement Monday that they were opposed to the legislation because “it fails in every policy area needed to secure our border and would actually incentivize more illegal immigration.”
The statement from Johnson and Reps. Steve Scalise, Tom Emmer and Elise Stefanik pointed to a provision in the bill that would grant work authorizations to migrants who qualify to enter the asylum system. They also argued that it would endorse a “catch and release” policy by placing migrants who enter the asylum system in a monitoring program while they await final decisions on their asylum claims.
Under the proposal, migrants who seek asylum would face a tougher and faster process for having their claims evaluated. The standard in initial interviews would be raised, and many would receive those interviews within days of arriving at the border. Final decisions on their asylum claims would happen within months, rather than the often years-long wait that is now common.
But the House Republican leaders said, “Any consideration of this Senate bill in its current form is a waste of time.”
Still, Lankford, the GOP’s chief negotiator on the bill, implored his colleagues to take another look at the legislation and consider the ramifications beyond the presidential election.
“My focus is what can we do right now — regardless of who’s president now, four years from now, or 10 years from now — what can we do to be able to fix problems in the law to be able to make sure long-term we have a better border,” he said.
Meanwhile, Trump went so far on Monday as to imply Lankford was making a career-risking mistake in working on, and maintaining support for, the bipartisan border bill. Trump detractors heard that as a threat.
The National Border Patrol Council, the union that represents Border Patrol agents, on Monday endorsed the proposal and said it would bring about a drop in illegal border crossings nationwide. The group in 2020 endorsed Trump and has been critical of Biden’s border policies.
“The National Border Patrol Council, the union that represents Border Patrol agents, on Monday endorsed the proposal and said it would reduce illegal border crossings nationwide.”
Maine’s King, speaking Tuesday, said the Border Patrol union “isn’t going to support something that is weak or ineffective.”
“It was amazing,” he said, “when [that union] came out for this bill yesterday, and it was even more amazing when my Republican colleagues started heading for the exits.”
“I don’t get it,” said King. “Well, I guess I do get it — I get the politics.”
“It looks like what’s happening is, and this is certainly is coming from Mr. Trump, is that they want the issue and not the solution. They want the chaos on the border in order to hammer Joe Biden, hammer the Democrats in the fall, but right now I think the ball is in their court: They’ve got a great bill.”
“The question is,” he said. “Do they want to solve the border crisis or not?”
“If they do, this is the best opportunity in years, and it may not come around again.”
He noted that it was not just the Border Patrol union vouching this week for the bill’s prospective impact. It was also endorsed by the Wall Street Journal’s conservative editorial board, which on Monday called it a border-security bill worth passing.
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, an Arizona independent who was central to crafting the proposal, echoed King in saying, “For me, this is a very simple choice: Do you want to secure the border, or do you not?”
Several Democrats have also come out against the bill, taking issue with new restrictions placed on asylum seekers. Immigration advocates have also said the bill would cut off important due-process rights for people who have fled to the U.S. to escape often harrowing violence.
Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, the lead Democratic negotiator for the bill, said, “I think this country is crying out for the parties to stop fighting over immigration and just get something done that’s going to better control the border and fix our broken immigration system.”
Biden, speaking at the White House on Tuesday, implored lawmakers to pass the bill and urged congressional Republicans to “show a little spine” by standing up to Trump.
The president also said, if the bill fails, he’ll lay it at his likely opponent’s feet as election season heats up. “I’ll be taking this issue to the country,” he said. “The voters are going to know that … just at the moment we were going to secure the border and fund these other programs, Trump and the MAGA Republicans said no.”
MarketWatch contributed.
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