Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell declared the $118 billion border bill dead just two days after the deal was reached, after Republican pushback sparked more frenzy in Congress.
House Speaker Mike Johnson immediately deemed the bipartisan border deal in the Senate “dead on arrival” and at least 22 Senate Republicans were expected to vote against the massive bill.
“It’s been made pretty clear to us by the speaker that this is not going to become law,” McConnell said Tuesday. “It seems to me, and most of our members, that we have no real chance of making a law here.”
McConnell is also facing multiple calls to resign, including from Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, as Republicans focused their ire on the 81-year-old for insisting that changes in the border policies would be included in the financing package for Ukraine and Israel.
The $118 billion bill — including $20 billion for border measures — would require the border to be closed if there are 5,000 encounters over the course of a week or 8,500 migrants in one day.
But many Republicans believe this does not go far enough and are demanding the immediate reinstatement of pandemic-era Title 42, “Remain in Mexico” policies and border wall construction.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said he plans to bring up the first procedural vote on Wednesday and has the support of President Biden and most Democrats.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is facing much of the wrath of Republicans who oppose the border and foreign aid package
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell declared the $118 billion border bill dead
House Speaker Mike Johnson said the $118 billion Senate border package is “dead on arrival” as he announced this weekend that the House of Representatives will table a “clean, standalone” $17 billion Israeli aid bill next week will bring.
Three lead negotiators for the border security package, Sens. James Lankford (R-Okla.), Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) and Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), unveiled the text of the comprehensive agreement on Sunday.
The $118 billion deal, backed by the White House, includes $14 billion in aid to Israel, $60 billion to Ukraine as well as $20 billion to secure the southern border amid a massive increase in illegal migration. It also includes billions for critical partnerships in the Indo-Pacific, including Taiwan.
But since the text became public, Republicans expressed outrage over the contents of the legislation and called for new GOP leadership.
Top negotiator Lankford went after his GOP colleagues who are furious about the deal, saying Monday on Fox & Friends that they are nitpicking “crazy details” and just want to “attack” the proposal — which he said closes the border.
He specifically explained that more than 5,000 have been crossing almost every day for the past four months and called Republican criticism of the provision “ridiculous” because the bill “completely closes the border” and “deports everyone.”
But Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, denounced the deal, calling it a “nonsense sandwich of a border bill,” and said “a single weekend” is not long enough to fully overhaul the 370-page law.
“It’ll take him three weeks to read it, but he’s already against it,” Lankford responded. “So again, people should be able to read it and go through it themselves. Don’t just post somewhere on Facebook about what’s in the bill,” Lankford said.
Republican Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Senator Steve Daines was the first among the Senate leadership to oppose the bill.
He has since been joined by fellow Republican Sens. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Sen. Jone Thune of North Dakota is still considering it.
Donald Trump insisted that only a “fool or a radical left Democrat” would actually vote for the “horrible” border package.
An agitated Sen. Lankford also told reporters on Monday that some lawmakers were “point-out” telling him that since it’s a year before the presidential election, they’re “not doing anything that helps Biden,” including approving the border deal.
His statement was a shot in the arm for Trump for trying to intervene and undermine the deal.
But Republican leaders in the House of Representatives made it clear this weekend that the package will not receive support in the House of Representatives.
“Any Republican who votes for this latest U.S. Senate open-border amnesty bill must be paid for by foreign interests and is acting as a foreign agent,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene wrote on X, formerly Twitter. ‘What a shame! They should be ashamed!!’
Former Freedom Caucus Chairman Scott Perry (R-Pa.) called the deal a “dumpster fire.”
“I have seen enough,” Chairman Johnson (R-La.) wrote on X. “This bill is even worse than we expected and will not come close to ending the border catastrophe the President has created.”
“As the lead Democratic negotiator proclaimed, under this legislation ‘the border will never close,’” Johnson added. “If this bill reaches the House of Representatives, it will be dead on arrival.”
Meanwhile, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) wrote: “Let me be clear: the Senate Borders Act will NOT get a vote in the House of Representatives.”
In addition, several progressives are expected to oppose the plan — such as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who said Sunday he opposes the package because of its funding for Israel.
And pro-immigration and Latin American lawmakers are focusing on immigration policy overhauls.
In December, more than 302,000 people were apprehended by Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
Broken down by day, approximately 10,000 migrants crossed from Mexico to the US every day in December.
Sen. Alex Padilla (D-California) called the bill a “new version of Trump-era policies that will cause more chaos at the border.”
The White House intervened in the Senate border negotiations, with Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas heading to Capitol Hill for discussions even as the House simultaneously launched an impeachment inquiry against him.
In December, the US saw the highest number of migrants arrested at the US border with Mexico: more than 302,000 were apprehended by Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
When broken down by dayIn December, about 10,000 migrants crossed the border from Mexico to the U.S. every day, which is 5,000 more than the limit the new law would set.