Congressional negotiators said a border deal was within reach on Thursday, despite efforts by Donald Trump and his allies on Capitol Hill to derail the talks.
With the fate of US aid for Ukraine hanging in the balance, the outlook for border compromise had appeared grim following reports on Wednesday night that the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, was walking away from a compromise that he suggested could “undermine” Trump’s chances in a November general election against Joe Biden. But by Thursday afternoon, senators involved in the discussions were insisting that the opposite was true: an agreement was in sight and legislative text could be released in the coming days.
According to a report in Punchbowl News, McConnell told Republicans in a closed-door meeting on Wednesday night that the “politics on this have changed”. With Trump as their likely standard bearer, McConnell reportedly indicated that it would be unwise to move forward with a bipartisan immigration deal that could possibly neutralize an issue that has become one of Biden’s biggest potential vulnerabilities. Referring to Trump as the party’s “nominee”, McConnell added: “We don’t want to do anything to undermine him.”
“That’s like parallel universe shit,” Senator Thom Tillis, a Republican of North Carolina involved in the negotiations, fumed to reporters on Thursday. “That didn’t happen.”
It would amount to a surprising about-face for McConnell, a strong supporter of sending aid to Ukraine and no friend of the former president, who has leveled racist broadsides against McConnell’s wife, Elaine Chao, and mercilessly disparaged the Republican leader as an “old crow”.
At the Capitol on Thursday, McConnell told Bloomberg News that the immigration talks were “ongoing”. Later McConnell reportedly assured his confused conference that he was “fully onboard” with the negotiations, and brushed aside reports that suggested otherwise.
The proposal under discussion in Congress would significantly change immigration policy with the aim of discouraging migration, amid a record flow of people arriving at the US southern border. It would include major concessions from Democrats on immigration in exchange for Republican support on passing military assistance to Israel and Ukraine, a country whose cause the party’s far right has turned against.
But the politics of a deal have only become more challenging as Trump consolidates support from Republican officials in what many view as his inevitable march toward the GOP nomination.
On social media, Trump implored Mike Johnson, the arch-conservative House speaker, not to accept a deal “unless we get EVERYTHING needed to shut down the INVASION of Millions and Millions of people”.
Failure to strike a deal would have global implications, with the Pentagon warning that Ukrainian soldiers on the frontlines of its grinding war with Russia risk running out of ammunition. The Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, has said the “future of the war in Ukraine” and the “security of our western democracy” depend on Congress reaching an agreement.
Biden had requested tens of billions of dollars from Congress to send aid to Ukraine and Israel as well as to allies in the Asia Pacific region. But the funding package has been stalled for months in Congress amid Republican demands for dramatic changes to border policy.
Senate Republicans who support the border talks said the party should seize the opportunity to address the situation at the border, which both parties and the White House have described as a crisis.
“I think the border is a very important issue for Donald Trump,” the Utah senator Mitt Romney, a Republican who has pressed his party to approve military aid for Ukraine, told reporters on Capitol Hill on Thursday. “And the fact that he would communicate to Republican senators and congresspeople that he doesn’t want us to solve the border problem because he wants to blame Biden for it is really appalling.”
He continued: “The reality is that we have a crisis at the border, the American people are suffering as a result of what’s happening at the border. And someone running for president ought to try and get the problem solved as opposed to saying: ‘Hey, save that problem. Don’t solve it. Let me take credit for solving it later.’”
Even in less contentious times, immigration ranks as one of the thorniest issues in American politics, and efforts to reform the nation’s outdated system have failed repeatedly. But as an unprecedented number of people fleeing violence, poverty and natural disasters seek refuge at the US-Mexico border, the issue has become top of mind for many Americans who overwhelmingly disapprove of the Biden administration’s handling of the matter.
Trump has already made immigration a central issue of his campaign, outlining a draconian vision for his second term that includes mass raids, detentions camps and more funding to build his long-promised wall along the border with Mexico.
Trump’s allies on Capitol Hill have argued that a bipartisan deal would only serve to give Biden political cover without actually solving the problem. Others argue that the Senate plan was designed to force the hand of the Republican-controlled House, where the speaker is under pressure from the far-right flank of his party not to compromise on the issue.
At a press conference earlier this week, the Texas senator Ted Cruz, a Republican, denounced the proposal, the details of which have not yet been released, as a “stinking pile of crap” that “represents Senate Republican leadership waging war on House Republicans”.
Cruz alleged that the negotiators involved cared only about supporting Ukraine and not fixing the issues at the southern border.
If a deal falls apart, Schumer and Biden will be forced to look for alternative legislative paths to approving aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. But with Republicans demanding border security measures in exchange for their votes, it remains far from certain that tying the aid to must-pass spending bills or bringing it to the floor as a standalone measure would garner the necessary 60 votes in the Senate.
The world will likely know soon whether a deal is possible, the Connecticut senator Chris Murphy, one of the Democratic negotiators, told reporters on Thursday.
“I think the Republican Congress is going to make a decision in the next 24 hours as to whether they actually want to get something done or whether they want to leave the border a mess for political reasons,” he said.
