Senate negotiators unveiled their long-awaited bipartisan border deal (TEXT) Sunday night and it was met with immediate blowback. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) declared the measure “even worse than we expected” and predicted it is dead on arrival in the House, while conservative Republicans in the Senate slammed the measure and vowed to defeat it. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) has said the bill would come to the floor for a first procedural vote on Wednesday, and the senators who helped craft it are trying to defend their work. The deal includes provisions to raise standards for asylum screening and to process claims faster, ends the practice known as “catch and release,” and provides a new authority to close the border to most migrants when crossings reach a set threshold. It also seeks to make it easier for migrants to get work authorization and eliminate the immigration court backlog. The full supplemental — which includes funds for the border, Israel and Ukraine aid, and other foreign policy priorities — totals $118 billion, with about $20 billion going to the border component. The package includes the FEND Off Fentanyl Act, which Speaker Johnson and House Republicans blocked from being added to the National Defense Authorization Act.
Among other items complicating matters, the House will vote this week on a standalone bill providing aid for Israel, House Speaker Johnson announced in a letter Saturday, representing an about-face for the speaker. Johnson put a $14.3 billion Israel aid package on the floor last year that included partisan IRS funding cuts that Democrats opposed. Now, Johnson is planning to move a $17.6 billion Israel bill with no offsets, upping pressure on Democrats to support it. Johnson called on the Senate to take up the standalone Israel bill swiftly, ratcheting up pressure on senators to abandon their efforts to keep Israel aid linked with the border package.
For today, following Leader remarks, the Senate will resume consideration of the nomination of Kurt Campbell to be Deputy Secretary of State and is expected to vote to confirm the nomination of Joseph Albert Laroski, Jr to be a Judge of the United States Court of International Trade.
The House will reconvene at 2:00 P.M. for legislative business and is expected to take up eight bills from the Natural Resources Committee under suspension of the Rules including, H.R. 1727 – Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park Commission Extension Act.
