No longer. The 51+9 model might have worked during the first two years of Joe Biden’s presidency, when Democrats controlled the House (which would pass whatever compromise Senate Democrats came up with). But the House is in Republican hands now, and the GOP majority knows that any border security measure which passes the Senate without losing at least some Democratic support will be — practically by definition — nothing more than window dressing. That means it is dead on arrival in the lower chamber.
Despite his public demands that the Senate approve H.R.2, the House GOP’s excellent border security bill, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) understands that Senate Democrats won’t do that. But to pass the House, a compromise bill must make changes to our border laws robust enough that it will inevitably lose some Democratic support in the Senate.
Senate Republicans agree. “This is going to end up being 30 and 30,” Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), who is leading negotiations for a compromise, recently told Politico. “We’re going to have folks on my side that are going to say, not enough, no way, there [are] still loopholes” on the border. And “we’re going to have folks on the other side that are going to say [it is too] draconian, non-compassionate” and refuse to vote for it. Only after making changes that cause some senate Democrats to balk will the Biden administration have a bill that can become law.
In other words, the key to passing a Ukraine-border compromise will not be addition but subtraction. Senate Republican leaders are ready to move forward knowing they will lose about 10 GOP senators who are dead-set against any additional aid to Ukraine. They also know they will have to make border policy compromises that will cost additional GOP votes. The question is: What fundamental changes to our border-security laws are Biden and Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) willing to make that will cost some Democratic votes in the Senate — yet make the bill palatable enough to pass the GOP-controlled House?
Democrats tried to avoid making real concessions and shaming the GOP for delaying aid to Ukraine and Israel. “Republicans — and only Republicans — are holding everything up because of unrealistic, maximalist demands on the border,” Schumer thundered on the Senate floor on Monday. Those pressure tactics were never going to work. Even the most pro-Ukraine Republicans will vote against a bill that includes funding to more efficiently process illegal migrants entering the country but does not do more to stop them from entering in the first place.
So now, some on the left are panicking that Biden is going to make real, substantive changes to border policy that Republicans are demanding. Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) implored Biden: “Please don’t go down this road, don’t cave to the extreme Republican immigration proposals … because if you do so, you cement your legacy as the asylum denier in chief. That’s not something we want to see.” If he loses Menendez’s vote on a final package, that would be a sign real progress is being made.
Getting tough on the border is in Biden’s political interest, as well. A recent Wall Street Journal poll shows that immigration is the second-most important issue to voters, and 64 percent disapprove of his border policies, while just 27 percent approve. That’s because he has presided over the worst border crisis in U.S. history. In fiscal 2023, the record for the most encounters at the southern border was again broken — for the third year in a row. Last week, migrant encounters hit more 12,000 in a single day — the highest total ever recorded. To put that in perspective, in 2019, the Obama administration’s homeland security secretary, Jeh Johnson, said that 1,000 border encounters a day “overwhelms the system.” Wouldn’t it be better for Biden’s reelection prospects if border encounters drop down from current record levels to the averages under the past three (Republican and Democratic) presidents?
Even some Democrats see that the status quo at the border is unsustainable. “Honestly, it’s astonishing,” Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) said last week, “you essentially have Pittsburgh showing up there at the border.” There is a compromise to be had that can win 60 to 70 votes in the Senate and pass the House. But it depends on whether Schumer and Biden are willing to move forward with a bill that loses some votes in their conference, just like Republicans are.
Doing so would be good for Biden and good for the American people — and it would be good for Ukraine. The most devastating argument employed by the anti-Ukraine right is that Biden cares more about securing Ukraine’s border than our own. Well, Biden could prove critics right by refusing to secure the U.S. border. Or he can prove them wrong by reaching an agreement with Republicans that would stop the flood of illegal migrants into this country and disarm the GOP isolationists of their most potent argument against aid to Ukraine.
The American people — and the Ukrainian people — are waiting to see what he decides.
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