Main leaders in Congress House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), U.S. Senate Minority Leader … [+] GETTY IMAGES
Former President Donald Trump has signalled he wants any immigration and border security deal tanked so that he can campaign on immigration in the upcoming Presidential elections. Intensive negotiations in the Senate and with the House over President Biden’s proposed $ 109 billion aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan in exchange for unprecedented concessions in decades from Democrats to secure the U.S. southern border have stalled in Congress as a result.
In a Senate Republican meeting on Ukraine, McConnell said that time and the political will to pass a bipartisan immigration and border security compromise may have actually run out already. McConnell indicated that there is no longer the desire to find a bipartisan solution to the immigration crisis and Ukraine’s aid package because the “Politics on this have changed,” since former President Donald Trump has made it clear he wants to run his 2024 campaign focusing on immigration. “We don’t want to do anything to undermine him,” McConnell said of Trump. McConnell wants to win the Senate back this November, and he believes that can’t happen without Trump’s support if he’s the GOP nominee.
Two Singular Leadership Opportunities Being Missed
It appears that Congress is about to miss two singular opportunities to make history and strengthen America internally and internationally for the sake of handing Donald Trump the opportunity to make immigration his focus in the upcoming Presidential election.
Border Deal Discussions
After months of in depth bipartisan negotiations to address what many regard as one of the most difficult domestic issues that has plagued Congress for decades, a deal appeared to be within reach. The discussions touched not only on border security, but the other important immigration questions that have been awaiting resolution, such as the Dreamers, H1B visa reform, temporary work issues including agricultural workers, asylum claims, the use of humanitarian parole, and a path to citizenship for long-term undocumented immigrants. As the New York TimesNYT -0.1% put it, “For months, Senate Republicans have been working with Democrats on a deal they have described as a once-in-a-generation opportunity for a conservative border security bill, and for weeks, they have hinted that they are tantalizingly close to an agreement.” But then former President Donald Trump intervened causing Republican support to recede because he indicated that he wanted to campaign on the immigration question in the next Presidential election.
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SOURCE: www.forbes.com
RELATED: Romney and Pro-Migration Senators Try to Revive McConnell’s Border Giveaway
Published January 26, 2024
Pro-migration Republican senators are trying to revive the border giveaway plan amid GOP splits, establishment finger-pointing, and growing public opposition.
The establishment backlash on Thursday morning came after the Wednesday admission by Republican Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell that GOP voters and swing voters are increasingly alarmed by President Joe Biden’s ruthless pro-migration economic policy.
“Anger and confusion on Hill as Trump appears to have blown up delicate compromise on immigration — and with it, aid to Ukraine and Israel,” said a tweet from Manu Raju, CNN’s reporter on Capitol Hill.
“Reading the confusion coming from the leader from the border bill puts a lot of question marks in my mind about where we’re going from here,” said Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT), who later insisted to CNN that everything is back on track:
The ambiguity that was around for the last few hours has been clarified for all of us. [McConnell] is fully behind the border bill, fully behind the support for Ukraine, and is not going to let political considerations of any campaign stand in the way of his support … Leader McConnell removed any question about his support. He said he is fully supportive of the border bill as he indicated for the last several weeks.
Democrats bitterly blamed Donald Trump for the breakdown. “We don’t live in a world today in which one person inside the Republican Party holds so much power that they could stop a bipartisan bill,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), the Democrats’ chief negotiator. “I’m just gonna keep my head down — I’m working with [Republican] partners who want to deal,” he added.
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SOURCE: www.breitbart.com
RELATED: McConnell dispels doubts about his commitment to a border-Ukraine deal
The Senate GOP leader made clear that Donald Trump’s opposition to an agreement was not souring him on the negotiations.
Published January 25, 2024
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said during a private meeting Thursday that he still supports a border security deal linked to Ukraine aid, according to GOP senators who attended — delivering a crucial boost to talks that are getting more complicated by the minute.
McConnell has spent the past few months singularly focused on getting billions of new dollars to Ukraine, so normally such a pledge would not be earth-shaking. Yet some Republicans woke up Thursday wondering if their bid to link stricter immigration policy to foreign aid was still viable, after McConnell on Wednesday delivered a candid assessment of the challenges posed by former President Donald Trump’s dominance in the presidential primary.
At the tail end of the Senate GOP’s last meeting of the week, however, McConnell removed any doubts: He is still forcefully pushing a deal that would pair new border and immigration restrictions with money for Ukraine. It’s a critical piece of McConnell’s legacy — and the GOP leader isn’t letting go at this late stage in the game.
Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), a Ukraine aid skeptic, said McConnell’s comments on Wednesday had somehow gotten “flipped around” and a day later “he just tried to get it straight … some of the senators came out and got kind of misconstrued on what he was talking about.”
“For me it was certainly clarifying … He made clear that he has been supportive of Senator Lankford’s negotiating efforts and that we should be supportive of any work product that leads to greater border security,” Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.) said.
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SOURCE: www.politico.com
