Ahead of a key procedural vote this afternoon, Senate Republican leaders are urging their GOP colleagues to block legislation to provide more than $61 billion in military and foreign aid for Ukraine because the package does not include immigration and asylum reforms. Any hopes of getting a bill passed this week were dashed when tempers boiled over at a classified briefing yesterday on the war in Ukraine and senators got into a shouting match over border security. The vote is expected to fail due to the opposition from Senate Republicans, who have demanded stricter border regulations in exchange for their support and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-New York) last-ditch offer to bring President Joe Biden’s request for emergency foreign aid to the floor along with a bipartisan bill to crack down on the fentanyl supply chain and a guarantee Republicans can offer the first amendment on border security was not enough to overcome the opposition.
The vote comes one day after Senate Democrats formally unveiled the $111bn supplemental security bill, reflecting the funding request that President Biden issued in October to provide assistance to America’s allies abroad. Although the bill includes a number of border security measures, Republicans in both chambers have insisted the legislation must go further in restricting migrants’ asylum and parole applications. Those proposals are a non-starter for many Democrats, making it unclear how a supplemental bill can pass the divided Congress. With no resolution in sight, Senate Republicans are expected to successfully filibuster the supplemental security bill, blocking it from advancing. The impasse increases the likelihood that Congress will fail to approve more aid for Ukraine before the end of the year, even as the White House has warned that Ukraine is desperately in need of more financial assistance. “I want to be clear: without congressional action, by the end of the year we will run out of resources to procure more weapons and equipment for Ukraine and to provide equipment from US military stocks,” Shalanda Young, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, wrote in a letter to congressional leaders on Monday.
For today, the Senate will consider a Motion to invoke cloture on the nomination of Nathalie Rayes to be Ambassador to the Republic of Croatia and vote on cloture on the motion to proceed to H.R. 815, the legislative vehicle for supplemental appropriations.
The House is expected to take up H.R. 4468 – Choice in Automobile Retail Sales Act of 2023 and H.R. 5933 – DETERRENT Act.
