WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden's push to have Congress top up war aid to Ukraine as part of an agreement on changes to border and immigration policies will almost certainly continue into next year.
The Senate, which had postponed its holiday recess, returned to Washington on Monday after negotiators spent the weekend working on border legislation, trying to reach a deal that could secure Republican votes for Biden's $110 billion Ukraine aid package. Israel and other countries. safety priorities.
But senators said they still had a lot of work to do, and it remained uncertain how many days the Senate will remain in session this week. Barely half of the senators returned for a vote on Monday evening.
“It's clear we need time,” said Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, the top Democratic negotiator.
The delay adds more uncertainty to the future of the Biden administration's priority of providing support against the Russian invasion. It also marks a potential pause in politically charged negotiations over immigration and border security policy, though Senate negotiators planned to continue working on the package.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the negotiations were “among the most difficult things we have done in recent history.”
“Everyone knows that something has to be done to fix our broken immigration system,” he said in a speech on the Senate floor to start the week. “But we cannot do that by compromising our values. Finding the middle ground is exceptionally difficult.”
The House of Representatives has already left this year, now that Congress is on a long winter break. Lawmakers are not scheduled to return until the second week of January, and then they will have to deal with other issues besides Ukraine's financing, including a partial shutdown in mid-January if Congress fails to pass a government funding package to approve.
But as the Senate passed the first substantive rewrite of the Immigration and Border Security Act in decades, Republicans insisted they would not agree to rushed legislation.
“It will take some time to get this deal passed and produce legislation,” Republican leader Mitch McConnell said in the Senate.
Schumer had planned extra working days this week in the hope of getting aid to Ukraine through the House, but made no mention of a vote on the package on Monday. He said both Republicans and Democrats would have to make more concessions and that it would “take a little more time to get this done.”
Members of the Senate core negotiating group – Murphy and Sens. Kyrsten Sinema, an Arizona independent, and James Lankford, a Republican from Oklahoma – met with White House staff on Monday and planned to continue the meeting throughout the week.
“We'll all be back in January, but it will be a while before we can finish all the writing,” Lankford said.
The weeks-long wait comes as the Defense Ministry says it is running out of funds available to support Ukraine's defense. In a letter to Congress, the Pentagon told lawmakers last week that it will soon transfer more than $1 billion to replenish supplies sent to Ukraine, with no further funds available as it impacts the country's own military readiness the United States maintains.
“Once these funds are obligated, the Department will have exhausted available funding for security assistance to Ukraine,” the letter obtained by The Associated Press said.
The department said that “it is essential that Congress act without delay” on the pending supplemental request.
Ukrainian forces tried to launch a counteroffensive this year but faced entrenched Russian troops, minefields and other dangers. They struggled to make any significant gains.
As the conflict drags into a second year, US public support for sending billions of dollars in weapons and economic aid has waned. The European Union also had to enter the new year with a plan to provide Ukraine with $54.5 billion after a veto by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, a right-wing leader who is on good terms with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Donald. Trump, the former president and front-runner for the Republican nomination next year.
With his country short of money to fend off Russia, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has traveled the world to appeal for support. He won praise from Republicans after meeting with them at the Capitol last week, but conservatives remained unmoved and in no rush to approve Biden's emergency funding request.
Republicans have said there is still time to double the aid before Ukraine's defense suffers. Republican Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa said that since the European Union has postponed sending more money to Kiev until the new year, he thinks the U.S. can too.
“If it's OK for them, it's certainly OK for us,” he said.
Dozens of Republican members of the House of Representatives have indicated they will not support continued aid to Ukraine, and even Republican senators who have been staunch supporters of the war effort in Ukraine in the past have urged Congress to approve new border restrictions as well.
Biden has offered to compromise on border and immigration policies, and top White House officials have joined Senate negotiations, including Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
Negotiators have been taking a closer look at a list of immigration enforcement measures, including detaining people seeking asylum at the border and granting nationwide authority to quickly remove migrants who have been in the U.S. for less than two years. They also agreed to increase the initial threshold for people to make asylum claims through credible fear surveys.
The White House has tried to maintain an immigration program known as humanitarian parole. The Biden administration has leaned heavily on using humanitarian parole as part of its policy to provide some migrants with legal routes to enter the country, while magnifying the consequences for those who do not use those routes. But Republicans have objected — and even filed a lawsuit to stop it — saying the administration is essentially bypassing Congress and improperly allowing migrants into the country who normally wouldn't qualify.
Still, Biden's willingness to make concessions in the negotiations has alarmed immigration advocates and drawn criticism from influential Latin American Democrats.
In a conference call with reporters on Monday, advocates dismissed the contemplated policy as a return to Trump's strategies, which left large numbers of migrants waiting in Mexico to seek asylum in the US.
“If asylum seekers are pushed back to Mexico, it will be extremely dangerous,” said Kerri Talbot, executive director of The Immigration Hub.
The senators have also described their work as a complex undertaking, as they delve into laws that have been the focus of intense legal and political battles for years.
“As we get into the text, it's very difficult,” Murphy said, but he added: “I think as the danger to Ukraine becomes more serious and more urgent, the urgency to get this done will increase.”