From Reuters:
“US Senate unveils $118
billion bill on border security, aid for Ukraine, Israel”
The U.S. Senate on Sunday
unveiled a $118 billion bipartisan border security bill that would also provide
aid to Ukraine and Israel, but it promptly slammed into opposition from the
House of Representatives. "I urge Congress to come together and swiftly
pass this bipartisan agreement," President Joe Biden said, also praising
the migration measures in the bill, which took months to negotiate. However,
House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson declared it "dead on
arrival" if it reaches his chamber. "This bill is even worse than we
expected, and won’t come close to ending the border catastrophe the president
has created," he said in a statement on X, formerly called Twitter. The
Democratic and Republican Senate backers of the wide-ranging U.S. border
security and foreign military aid bill pledged to push ahead, despite
opposition by Donald Trump as well. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said
he would take steps to hold an initial vote on the bill on Wednesday.
If the bill were to become law,
it would mark the most significant changes in U.S. immigration and border
security in decades. Some progressive Democrats are angry the measure does
nothing to provide a pathway to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented
people who have lived in the U.S. for many years, including "Dreamer"
immigrants who were brought in as children. Independent Senator Kyrsten Sinema
told reporters the legislation would secure the U.S. southern border, including
by requiring the Department of Homeland Security to temporarily "shut
down" the frontier to most migrants if there are an average of more than
5,000 crossing attempts per day over seven days. Republican Senator James
Lankford, one of the negotiators on the bill, said that the border likely would
remain closed for at least three weeks as the numbers of arriving immigrants
drop significantly.
In addition to $20.23 billion for
border security, the bill included $60.06 billion to support Ukraine in its war
with Russia, $14.1 billion in security assistance for Israel, $2.44 billion to
U.S. Central Command and the conflict in the Red Sea, and $4.83 billion to
support U.S. partners in the Indo-Pacific facing aggression from China,
according to figures from Senator Patty Murray, who chairs the Senate's
Appropriation Committee.
An additional $10 billion would
provide humanitarian assistance for civilians in conflict zones including in
Ukraine, Gaza and the West Bank, although the bill includes a provision barring
its funds from going to the U.N. agency for Palestinians, UNRWA. The Biden
administration and other nations have paused funding to the agency over
allegations that some of its staff were involved in Hamas' Oct. 7 attacks in
southern Israel.
"The priorities in this bill
are too important to ignore and too vital to allow politics to get in the
way," Schumer said in a statement. "The United States and our allies
are facing multiple, complex and, in places, coordinated challenges from
adversaries who seek to disrupt democracy and expand authoritarian influence
around the globe." The key overseas security provisions of the bill
largely match what Biden requested from Congress in October, when he asked for
additional funds for aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. That request has been stalled by House
Republicans' insistence that it be tied to a shift in immigration policy.
With House Republicans divided
over how to address the huge number of immigrant arrivals and whether to
provide Ukraine with any more aid, Johnson on Saturday said he plans to hold a
vote this week on a new bill providing $17.6 billion in military assistance to
Israel. That measure has no new funding for Ukraine or for U.S. border
security. Meantime, Lankford said he would engage with Johnson in hopes of more
House support for the Senate bill. Schumer said the agreement would provide
more frontline personnel and asylum officers and provide "faster and
fair" immigration decisions. Lankford told reporters it would fund as many
as 50,000 immigrant detention beds, up from the current 34,000.
The bill's proponents said it
would end the controversial "catch-and-release" practice that critics
said contribute to high numbers of illegal immigrants arriving at the southern
border. It would do so by speeding up the adjudication of asylum cases instead
of quickly releasing apprehended migrants and allowing them to stay in the
United States for years while they await hearings. Mitch McConnell, the top
Senate Republican, has supported the negotiations, saying Republicans would not
get a better deal under a Republican White House. "The Senate must
carefully consider the opportunity in front of us and prepare to act,"
McConnell said in a statement. Schumer said in a news conference that he had
never worked so closely with long-term Senate colleague McConnell as on the
bill. "At many occasions we thought the negotiations had fallen
apart," Schumer said.
RIGHT-WING OPPOSITION Nonetheless,
right-wing Republicans are skeptical of the new Senate bill. "Here’s
what the people pushing this 'deal' aren’t telling you: It accepts 5,000
illegal immigrants a day and gives automatic work permits to asylum recipients
— a magnet for more illegal immigration," House Majority Leader Steve
Scalise said on X. Other congressional Republicans have said Biden can
enact many of the changes they want to immigration policy through executive
action, though they had previously called for legislative action. Immigration
is the second largest concern for Americans, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll
published on Wednesday, and is a top issue for Republicans specifically. The
U.S. Border Patrol arrested about 2 million migrants at the border in fiscal
year 2023. Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican nomination to
challenge Biden in the November election, has campaigned heavily on opposition
to immigration. House Republicans are also pushing ahead with an effort to
impeach Biden's top border official, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro
Mayorkas.
^ Despite this being backed by
Republicans and Democrats in the Senate I don’t see the Republicans in the
House passing this because they can no longer think or act for themselves. Even
when they are the ones who said they needed a Border Deal and they would get a
Border Deal.
The House Republicans are not out
for governing the US or helping the American People, but for causing chaos and confusion
– which they seem to be good at. ^
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