Biden Considers New Border and Asylum Restrictions in Last-Ditch Effort for Senate Ukraine Aid Agreement

The Biden administration is working to reach a deal for wartime aid for Ukraine by agreeing to Senate Republican demands to strengthen U.S.-Mexico border policies. Urgency is setting in as Congress prepares to depart Washington with the impasse unresolved.

The White House is racing to lock in a deal in principle with key Senate negotiators, which would allow them to work on the text of legislation through the holiday break.

Advocates for immigrants and members of President Joe Biden’s Democratic Party are concerned about the policies under discussion, fearing a return to the hardline border and immigration policies of the Trump era.

Congress has little time to reach an agreement on Biden’s $110 billion request for Ukraine, Israel, and other national security needs that Republicans are holding up to demand changes to border policy.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine visited Washington this week to ask lawmakers for support, but key international commitments and a deal on immigration and border security are left hanging in the balance as Congress prepares to leave for weeks.

“This is difficult, very difficult,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., on the Senate floor Wednesday. “But we’re sent here to do difficult things.”

Among the proposals being seriously discussed are plans to tighten the U.S.-Mexico border and remove some recent migrant arrivals already in the U.S.

The policies resemble ones that President Donald Trump’s Republican administration tried to implement, but many of them were successfully challenged in court.

Advocates for immigrants are planning demonstrations at the Capitol and warning of a return to anti-immigrant policies.

Senate Republicans discussed the White House’s proposal at a lunchtime meeting and expressed some optimism that Biden’s administration was directly involved in shaping the legislation.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the administration was “encouraged” by progress in the negotiations and stressed that any final product has to be a “bipartisan compromise.”

In the Capitol, the senators who have been negotiating the border package urged congressional leaders to call lawmakers back to Washington next week, hoping that they could use this week’s momentum to push through the package.

But their colleagues warned that having the Senate pass the package would be futile unless the House was ready to move quickly.