A key faction of Republican and Democratic senators have agreed on a $118.3 billion deal to implement stricter border and immigration policies. A security omnibus that includes aid for Ukraine and Israel, the bill is set for an uncertain floor vote in the coming days.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) has pledged to hold a procedural vote on Wednesday, although doubts remain about the legislation’s securing the necessary 60 votes. According to lead GOP negotiator Senator James Lankford (R., Okla.), 20 to 25 Republican senators are prepared to assess the specifics. Additionally, a handful of Democrats are expected to vote against it.
President Joe Biden expressed support for the agreement in a Sunday-night statement, emphasizing the urgency of securing the border: “If you believe, as I do, that we must secure the border now, doing nothing is not an option.”
The fate of the border deal is even more uncertain in the House, as Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) announced on NBC’s Meet the Press that the House would prioritize a $17 billion Israel-aid bill over the supplemental-funding package. After the plan’s details were made public, Mike Johnson took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to reaffirm his condemnation of the deal. “I’ve seen enough. The bill is even worse than we expected, and won’t come close to ending the border catastrophe the President has created. As the lead Democrat negotiator proclaimed: Under this legislation, ‘the border never closes.’ If this bill reaches the House, it will be dead on arrival.”
To counter criticisms about the bill, Senator Lankford released the bill’s text. Under the proposed legislation, the southern border would immediately shut down to illegal crossings when migrant encounters hit specific daily benchmarks — addressing a situation in which crossings have sometimes exceeded 10,000 per day. In addition to mandating a border shutdown at 5,000 daily encounters, the bill grants the president the authority to invoke that measure at 4,000 encounters per day.
The legislation represents the most ambitious immigration legislation to receive serious congressional consideration in six years. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s office described the legislation as a series of “conservative wins,” saying, “The Border Act closes the asylum loophole. Right now ‘asylum’ is a magic word that lets aliens stay indefinitely in the United States. The Border Act places asylum seekers in expedited removal to screen them all within 90 days and deliver final judgments within 180 days — as opposed to the decade or more that it currently takes.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries criticized Speaker Johnson’s decision to prioritize an Israel-aid bill over the bipartisan border deal, calling it “a cynical attempt to undermine the Senate’s bipartisan effort.” Johnson denied any influence from former president Donald Trump, asserting, “He’s not calling the shots. I’m the one calling the shots.”