WASHINGTON—A Senate border bill that was previously blocked by Republicans is seeing dwindling support among members of both parties ahead of another expected vote this week.
During its last floor vote in February, the legislation failed to advance in a 49-50 vote due to opposition from both Democrats and Republicans. It would need 60 votes to overcome the filibuster threshold.
As Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) forges ahead with another vote on the legislation planned for May 23, details about which amendments, if any, will be allowed remain unclear.
But since its failure in February, the political calculus has only grown worse for the bill’s proponents.
During that initial vote, all but a handful of Republicans—including Sens. James Lankford (R-Okla.), Mitt Romney (R-Utah), Susan Collins (R-Maine), and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska)—voted to tank the measure on a procedural vote.
Now, several of these have indicated that they won’t back the bill this time.
He’s indicated he won’t be backing the measure a second time.
Mr. Romney, meanwhile, said the same in comments to The Epoch Times.
“I think it’s better than what we have now, but we’ve already voted on it,” Mr. Romney said. “And so at this stage, it’s a little political game that leader Schumer is playing and I presume I'll vote no, but I haven’t really, given that a lot of thought.”
Ms. Collins and Ms. Murkowski haven’t indicated how they'll vote, though Ms. Collins has called for a robust process that allows GOP amendments to come to the floor.
But it’s not just Republicans, despite Democrats’ efforts to blame the bill’s failure solely on GOP opposition: several Democrats are also poised to oppose the package.
During its first Senate run in February, four Democrats—Sens. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who caucuses with Democrats—opposed the measure.
It seems likely nothing’s changed in the interim, as these lawmakers tied their opposition to the measure’s lack of protection for “Dreamers,” the recipients of deferred immigration enforcement under President Barack Obama.
Since then, another Democrat has added his name to that list: Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.).
“In February, I voted to advance the bipartisan immigration deal to emphasize my commitment to continued debate on solving the challenges at the border, despite my serious concerns with some of the substance of the underlying legislation,” Mr. Booker said.
“I will not vote for the bill coming to the Senate floor this week because it includes several provisions that will violate Americans’ shared values,” he added, citing the bill’s tightening of conditions to receive asylum and lack of legislative protections for Dreamers.
And though he supported the bill last time, Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) is also critical of Mr. Schumer’s plan to bring it back to the floor, calling the motion largely “symbolic.”
“I was clear after it didn’t pass [the first time] that we should have a conversation to make it more strict ... because it is a crisis. We have to address it,” Mr. Fetterman told The Epoch Times.
Asked whether the bill was largely being used as a “political tool” to bolster Democrats’ image on the border, Mr. Fetterman said that that language was too “pejorative,” but acknowledged that it’s largely symbolic on Democrats’ part.
“I think we can all agree that it would just be symbolic that to put something up that is gonna go down,” Mr. Fetterman said.
PR War
As the Senate gears up for another attempt at the bill, Republicans and Democrats are waging a PR war over the bill as immigration continues to dominate voters’ priorities ahead of the 2024 presidential election.Republicans claim that Mr. Schumer is only bringing the bill to the floor for overtly political reasons as voters express continued skepticism about Democrats’ credentials on securing the border; Democrats claim that Republicans are opposing the bill for equally political reasons.
But Republicans claim that their opposition lies in the substance of the bill, which they say doesn’t go far enough to address the issue, and, in some cases, could actually make the situation worse—particularly in a clause that allows as many as 5,000 illegal aliens to enter the country daily before the president is required to shut down the border.
As the political image war wages on between the two parties, both held competing press conferences on May 22, with Republicans expressing opposition to the bill and Democrats expressing support.
Republicans again pointed to the 5,000 per day clause, an amount that could effectively codify some 1.8 million illegal aliens entering the country annually.
Instead, Republicans have called on President Joe Biden himself to take action, noting that President Donald Trump demonstrated during his tenure that the president already has sufficient power to manage the border.
“The fact of the matter is that President Trump had the authority to secure the border. He did. Biden used that exact same authority to open it back up,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) told The Epoch Times.
Democrats, meanwhile, extolled the effects the bill could potentially have on reducing the flow of fentanyl into the country.
In a memo sent to the press, the White House accused Republicans of being on the side of fentanyl pushers.
“Instead of supporting legislation endorsed by the Border Patrol Union, congressional Republicans sided with fentanyl traffickers,” the White House said.
President Biden has repeatedly endorsed the legislation and called on Congress to take it up.
Amid the debate, both parties are claiming—and responding to claims—that the other party is motivated primarily by politics.
Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) told The Epoch Times that the bill “seems like it’s a Schumer lifeline to guys like Tester,” a reference to Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) who’s facing a tough reelection bid in ruby-red Montana.
“Biden could fix the border tomorrow if he wanted to—Trump fixed the border without additional authority,” Mr. Sullivan said. “So my message to President Biden? Fix the border the way Trump did.”
The sentiment was repeated by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who called the second push on the bill “completely a political stunt. I don’t even think it'll get any Republican votes.”
Like his colleagues, Mr. Paul called on President Biden to fix the border with his preexisting authorities.
Mr. Murphy, meanwhile, rejected the claim that Democrats were pursuing the bill for political advantage, blaming Republicans with political motives seeking to kill the bill.
“I think it’s pretty ironic for a party that openly admits they killed the bill for political reasons to claim that we’re trying to pass a law for political reasons,” Mr. Murphy told reporters.
Mr. Murphy, one of the lead negotiators on the bill, said that it was very different from the House’s H.R. 2 border security bill, which Mr. Murphy dismissed as “transparently a partisan political exercise,” while the Senate bill, he said, is “transparently bipartisan.”
“I just think ... Republicans have zero interest in fixing the border because they can’t imagine living in a world in which the border isn’t a political issue,” Mr. Murphy said.
Facing bipartisan opposition, and likely near-unanimous GOP opposition, the bill seems slated for another quick death in the upper chamber when brought to the floor on May 23.
