As House GOP leadership opposes a rumored Senate border compromise deal, Republicans in the upper chamber are divided over what to do next.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) confirmed his intention to move forward with some kind of legislation, while cautiously discounting House Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) hostility to the package.
“It is important to focus on other rationales for additional – [we have] two friends in the middle of a big fight. Israel, Ukraine — they need help,” McConnell told reporters Wednesday.
“Hopefully we can resolve this border issue in a satisfactory manner.”
McConnell also praised Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), the GOP’s chief negotiator, who has drawn criticism from Republicans in both the House and at home over the reported deal.
Lankford fielded questions from his GOP Senate colleagues behind closed doors earlier Wednesday, according to McConnell.
Mitch McConnell has indicated a desire to pursue some sort of arrangement. AP The Oklahoma Republican Party denounced James Lankford over his role in the border deal and later rejected it. AP
Although the text of the bill — negotiated by Lankford, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) — has yet to be finalized and made public, a summary seen by The Post last week showed it would create the authority to automatically reject immigrants trying to enter the US when it crosses the eclipse level of 5,000 a day.
Former President Donald Trump has called on Republicans to take on the deal, denouncing it as “an appalling open-borders betrayal of America.”
“Of course it’s not treason. We need to be able to address the legal issues,” Lankford told CNN when asked about the 45th president’s remarks.
Lisa Murkowski knocks her colleagues for being cold on the border deal. Getty Images for JDRF
“Does he have access to the bill?” Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) asked CNN in response to Trump. “It has not been released. How did he know it was a betrayal if he didn’t read it? … I mean, don’t be ignorant.”
But Trump is not alone in expressing frustration.
On Wednesday, Johnson lampooned the package in an impassioned House floor speech arguing: “From what we’ve heard, this so-called deal does not include the transformational policy changes needed to really stop the border catastrophe.”
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“It is madness. Anything higher than zero [crossings] give up our borders, give up our sovereignty and security.”
The White House has accused Trump of trying to derail compromise legislation to strip President Biden of victory ahead of the Nov. 5 election as voters give Democrats poor marks on the border crisis in many polls.
Ted Cruz blasted the deal and slammed the Senate GOP leadership for not caring about clashes with his House counterparts. Getty Images
Some Senate Republicans seem to agree with that assessment.
“It was the Republicans, I’ll remind you, who told the Democrats a few months ago that if you want to try to get your Ukraine funding, you have to take up the border issue. This is what we are asking for,” Senator Lisa Murkowski told a HuffPost reporter. “Let us receive what we ask for.”
“I think the border is a very important issue for Donald Trump,” Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) complained to CNN last week. “And the fact that he’s going to convey to Republican senators and congressmen that he doesn’t want us to solve the border problem because he wants to blame Biden for it is absolutely appalling.”
The more conservative Senate Republicans took a hard line on the compromise.
“As bad as we think the bill is, I promise you, it’s worse,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said last week. “This extra bill is a kamikaze plane in a canyon box with no way out, headed for a train wreck.”
“James Lankford is smart, hardworking and knows the issue — he’s on a suicide mission,” Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) told Fox News Digital this week. “If we can’t force Biden to secure the border, we’ll just have to close the border.”
Meanwhile, Murphy has publicly predicted the deal could reach the Senate floor for a vote as early as next week.
A bill must take at least nine Republican votes to overcome a filibuster. If it clears the upper chamber, it must pass the House, a proposition that is increasingly unlikely unless Democrats and moderate Republicans join forces.
President Biden faced a significant turnout from voters over the border crisis. James Keivom
Meanwhile, the crisis on the southern border continues to break records.
During fiscal year 2023, which ends on September 30, more than 2.47 million migrant encounters were recorded along the Mexican border, according to US Customs and Border Protection.
A further 302,034 illegal border crossings were apprehended in December.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
