Senate Negotiators Unveil Long-Awaited Immigration and Ukraine Aid Bill
After months of discussions, Senate negotiators on Sunday released a bipartisan deal to secure the U.S.-Mexico southern border and also provide Ukraine with aid amid the Russian invasion.
The 370-page bill was crafted after months of talks between Sens. James Lankford (R-OK), Chris Murphy (D-CT), and Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ). The deal provides provides billions to Ukraine, Israel, and other allies in the Indo-Pacific. Moreover, the bill raises standards for asylum screening and ends the practice of “catch and release.”
The full cost of the bill totals $118 billion with $20 billion going towards border security.
However, Republican leaders, including former President Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), oppose the deal calling it “dead on arrival.”
Per The Washington Post:
The proposal raises the standard for migrants to qualify to apply for asylum and increases the capacity for detaining them. The bill also encourages quicker resolutions to asylum cases at the border and creates a new expedited removal authority to speedily remove migrants who don’t qualify for asylum.
The bill includes a trigger mechanism that would allow the border to be effectively shut down to migrants if crossings have been particularly high for several days in a row. (A number of migrants would still be able to qualify for asylum at ports of entry.)
That “border emergency” provision, which expires in three years, would automatically kick in when crossings reached 5,000 per day for several days, but a president could choose to use the tool at a lower number, 4,000 per day. The legislation also scales back the Biden administration’s use of parole at the ports of entry and provides for the hiring of new border patrol and asylum officers.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) announced Sunday evening that the first procedural vote on the bill is scheduled for Wednesday.
“Senators must shut out the noise from those who want this agreement to fail for their own political agendas,” the Democratic leader said in a statement. Schumer praised the deal as “a monumental step towards strengthening America’s national security abroad and along our borders.”
He added, “This is one of the most necessary and important pieces of legislation Congress has put forward in years to ensure America’s future prosperity and security,
Watch the clip above via Fox News.
