WASHINGTON (AP) — Senior Biden administration officials worked Wednesday to try to reach a last-minute agreement Wartime aid to Ukraine By agreeing to Senate Republican demands to strengthen US-Mexico border policies, an urgent necessity as Congress prepares to leave Washington with the impasse unresolved.
The White House has been racing to reach an agreement in principle with lead negotiators in the Senate, according to two people familiar with the plans who requested anonymity to discuss them. The core negotiating group, which included Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, left the Capitol on Wednesday evening after making progress but without finalizing the principles of the agreement.
As details of the plan emerged, immigrant advocates and members of President Joe Biden’s Democratic Party expressed concern about the policies under discussion. Some demonstrated at the Capitol, warning against a return to the hard-line border and immigration policies of the Trump era.
Congress has little time to reach an agreement on this Biden asked for $110 billion For Ukraine, Israel and other national security needs Republicans object to demanding changes in border policy. While White House officials and key Senate negotiators appeared to be narrowing the list of priorities to tighten the U.S.-Mexico border and remove some migrants who recently arrived in the U.S., Senate Republicans said earlier Wednesday that not enough progress had been made to justify staying in. . In Washington the day after Thursday.
Visited by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky Washington is scheduled to appeal to lawmakers this week for support, but lawmakers remain prepared to leave for weeks with one of the United States’ key international commitments — to help stop the moves of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Invasion in Ukraine – I seriously doubt it. Leaving the matter pending would mean reaching an agreement on one of the most complex issues in American politics: immigration and border security.
“The talks are continuing,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said as the Senate closed on Wednesday evening.
within Proposals are being seriously discussedAccording to several people familiar with the private conversations, there are plans to allow Homeland Security officials to block migrants from applying for asylum at the southern US border if the total number of crossings exceeds the daily capacity of about 5,000 people. Some single-day totals this year have exceeded 10,000.
Proposals to detain people seeking asylum at the border, including families with children, are also being discussed, possibly using electronic monitoring systems.
Negotiators are also looking at ways to allow authorities to quickly remove migrants who have been in the United States for less than two years, even if they are far from the border. But those deportations would only extend to people who have not requested asylum or have not been approved to enter the asylum system, according to one person familiar with the negotiations.
These policies are similar to those that President Donald Trump’s Republican administration attempted to implement to reduce border crossings, but many of them have been successfully challenged in court. If Congress passes these laws, it will give immigration advocates little legal basis to challenge restrictions on asylum seekers.
Immigrant advocates have warned against a return to anti-immigrant policies and questioned whether they will address problems at the border.
“I never would have imagined that at a time when we have a Democratic Senate and a Democratic White House, we would come to the table and propose some of the harshest immigration policies ever,” said US Civil Affairs Representative Maribel Hernandez Rivera. Director of the Union of Freedoms for Policy and Government Affairs.
Senate negotiators also reached some agreement on raising the threshold for people seeking asylum to pass reliable initial fear checks.
Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, a key Democratic negotiator, said it’s not surprising that Democrats are unhappy with some of the items being discussed, which is why they need a balanced deal.
“I would just say that obviously we have to get a lot of Democratic votes and a lot of Republican votes in order to pass this and that means making sure that this is a fair deal,” Murphy said after a long day of talks.
Senate Republicans discussed the White House proposal in a lunchtime meeting and expressed some optimism that the Biden administration was directly involved in crafting the legislation. But several senators said there simply was not enough time to reach an agreement.
“No one has written anything down. These are all concepts right now,” said Sen. John Thune, the No. 2 Senate Republican. “The agreement has not been reached yet,” the No. 2 Senate Republican added.
But Ukraine’s staunchest supporters in the Senate urged congressional leaders to keep lawmakers in Washington until the package passed. A group of Democratic senators met in Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell’s office on Wednesday afternoon, and Sen. Michael Bennet, the Colorado Democrat who organized the meeting, came out and called it a “productive” session.
In a separate meeting, Mayorkas met for about two hours at the Capitol with the core negotiating group. It was the second day in a row that the Cabinet secretary traveled to the Capitol, but issues remained regarding reaching an agreement.
“Good progress,” Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona said late in the evening.
Even if the Senate remains in Washington to pass the proposals, House Speaker Mike Johnson Louisiana’s governor, a Republican, will also need to push the legislation through his chamber, where there will likely be bipartisan opposition. Hardline conservatives complain that the Senate’s proposals do not go far enough, while progressive Democrats and Hispanic lawmakers oppose cutting off access to asylum.
At a news conference in front of the Capitol, leaders of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus pledged to oppose the policies under consideration. They also said Latino lawmakers should have been central to the negotiations.
“Biden campaigned on restoring the soul of the nation and upholding our democratic values and the principles of our founding fathers. “This includes defending our asylum system and the respectful treatment of refugees,” said Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif.
He called it “unconscionable” for a Democratic president to compromise on border policy without getting policies that benefit immigrants.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the administration was “encouraged” by the progress made in negotiations and stressed that any final product must be a “bipartisan compromise.” She declined to respond to criticism from advocates that the provisions under discussion could be harsher than those passed by Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump.
At the Capitol, senators who have been negotiating the border package also considered asking lawmakers to return to Washington next week, hoping they can use this week’s momentum to move the package forward.
But their colleagues warned that Senate approval of the package would be futile unless the House of Representatives was prepared to act quickly.
“It’s going to be a piñata that people will be eating for the next couple of weeks,” said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas.
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Associated Press writers Elliot Spagat, Seung-Min Kim and Rebecca Santana contributed to this report.
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