WASHINGTON – Top U.S. Senate negotiators said Thursday that the final details of an immigration deal continue to be debated in the U.S. Senate, despite Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s external pressure to scuttle any agreement as he makes immigration his central campaign message might.
The No. 2 Senate Republican and GOP leader, Sen. John Thune, said negotiations over an immigration deal tied to passage of a multibillion-dollar global securities supplement package are “at a critical moment, and we must do it.” “I’m trying my best to make it happen.”
“If we can’t do it, then we’ll go to Plan B,” said the South Dakota Republican.
He did not elaborate on what a “Plan B” would look like or whether an immigration deal would be removed from the supplemental agreement that would provide key aid to Ukraine that some Republican and Democratic senators are advocating as the country runs out of ammunition in the war with Russia.
As he did in his first presidential campaign, Trump has made immigration a major issue, often describing migrants seeking asylum at the southern border as an “invasion.” On his social media page truth socialhe called on Republicans in Congress not to agree to a deal.
During a closed session Wednesday evening, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky acknowledged the difficulty of passing an immigration bill and the potential for it to undermine Trump, the deal’s top Republican negotiator, Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma, told reporters at the Capitol .
However, Lankford denied that McConnell’s comments, first reported by Punchbowl News, meant an immigration deal would collapse so Trump could attack President Joe Biden on the issue.
“McConnell laid out the political realities of where things are, and it was talking about the elephant in the room,” Lankford said. “We are in a political election season.”
But Republican Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, a longtime Trump critic, told CNN: “The fact that [Trump] “would tell Republican senators and congressmen that he doesn’t want us to solve the border problem, but basically wants to blame Biden for it – that’s truly appalling.”
In a campaign press release Thursday evening, Trump criticized Romney and any prospect of a deal. “What is currently being processed in the Senate will be meaningless in terms of border security and closure,” the statement said. “Four years ago we had the safest, most secure border in our country’s history, and now we have the WORST, probably anywhere in the world.”
Lankford said he hasn’t spoken to Trump in months and that he, along with the bipartisan group of senators working on the border deal – Senator Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, and Kyrsten Sinema, Independent of Arizona – are still making progress .
“It’s now late January, in the middle of presidential primary season, so I think that’s the change that’s happened that he’s just acknowledging,” Lankford said of McConnell. Trump sailed to victory in the New Hampshire presidential primary on Tuesday after winning the Jan. 15 Iowa caucuses, with former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley his only major remaining opponent.
It’s also unclear whether any eventual Senate deal will hold up in the House, as Republican Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana calls for passage of tough immigration legislation in the House and pushes forward with impeachment proceedings against U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over his immigration issues Guidelines.
Johnson has also voiced his support for Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who is defying U.S. Supreme Court and White House orders by maintaining and installing razor wire along the Texas-Mexico border. Additionally, 25 GOP governors signed a letter On Thursday, they supported Abbott and the state’s “constitutional right to self-defense” at the country’s southern border.
Probation sought
Although no framework or legislative text for a deal has been released in the Senate, some of the proposed proposals would limit the Biden administration’s exploit of parole powers, which the administration has relied heavily on to provide momentary protection to migrants by allowing them to do so Living and working in the United States is possible without a visa.
According to compiled data, the Biden administration has used its parole authority more frequently than previous administrations to manage the vast number of migrants at the southern border from Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), which collects immigration data.
The agreement is also likely to bring about changes in asylum law that would raise the hurdles for migrant asylum seekers.
For four months, Lankford, Sinema and Murphy worked to broker a deal with the White House to release more than $100 billion in additional global security aid to Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and U.S. border security.
Senate Republicans have tied their support for the global amendment to changes in immigration policy.
If passed, it would be the most sweeping change to immigration law in 30 years.
Whether a deal goes through is up to Republicans, Murphy said.
“We negotiated a border policy package, we did what Republicans asked us to do, and now they seem to be having a hard time actually getting the deal done,” he said.
Murphy said negotiators have a draft that the appropriators will consider. He added that he was not sure whether aid to Ukraine would not be tied to changes in immigration policy.
“I think what really scares some Republicans is that the deal we reached will actually solve a big part of the problem, and I know that for Donald Trump and some Republicans, it’s not in their best interest, “If there are policy changes.” “Actually fix the broken asylum system or give the president novel tools to better manage the border,” Murphy said.
Sen. Steve Daines, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the GOP campaign arm, said he had not spoken to Trump about the immigration deal.
“It seems pretty ironic to me that people are blaming Trump for the border deal when it is Biden who created the problem and can unilaterally solve the problem through executive action,” the Montana Republican said.
Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a staunch Trump supporter, said he had spoken to the former president and “told him what we want to accomplish” but declined to answer questions about whether the deal could pass without Trump’s approval .
Some Republicans are reluctant to wait
Despite Trump’s urging to abandon talks, some Senate Republicans said they were committed to addressing the southern border.
Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn, who endorsed Trump earlier this week, said that “Texas cannot afford to wait 11 months,” referring to a possible second Trump presidency in 2025.
“Some people said, well, that [immigration] The problem will go away, and that means President Trump is in denial about the problem. I think that’s a fantasy,” Cornyn said. “You’re not going to turn off what’s happening at the border like a faucet, so this will continue to be a problem and it’s obviously a very, strong political problem.”
He said that while Trump was “an important voice,” the Senate “has a job to do, and we intend to get it done.”
Lankford echoed the same sentiments, expressing doubt that Republicans would be able to pass substantive immigration policy in a second term with Trump because “we tried to do some immigration work while President Trump was president.” [and] Democrats would not join us in this conversation, and I’m not sure they would in the next administration during this period.”
Lankford noted that the agreement they are currently working on, if passed, will determine immigration policy for decades.
“It really sets the policy direction for a long time,” he said. “So I encourage people to take a closer look and say, ‘What can we do to make sure we have a consistent policy that works better than what we have now?'”
