WASHINGTON — Top Biden administration officials labored Wednesday to try to reach a last-minute deal for wartime aid for Ukraine by agreeing to Senate Republican demands to bolster U.S.-Mexico border policies, with urgency setting in as Congress prepared to depart Washington with the impasse unresolved.
The White House was racing to lock in a deal in principle with key Senate negotiators, according to two people familiar with the plans who demanded anonymity. A core negotiating group, which included Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, departed the Capitol on Wednesday evening after making progress but without the principles of a deal finalized.
As details of the plan emerged, advocates for immigrants and members of President Joe Biden’s own Democratic Party fretted about the policies under discussion. Some demonstrated at the Capitol, warning of a return to the hard-line border and immigration policies of the Trump era.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas attends a House committee hearing Nov. 15 on Capitol Hill in Washington.
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. While White House officials and key Senate negotiators appeared to be narrowing on a list of priorities to tighten the U.S.-Mexico border and remove some migrants who recently arrived in the U.S., Senate Republicans said that not enough progress had been made to justify staying in Washington beyond Thursday.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited Washington this week to implore lawmakers for support, but lawmakers were still ready to leave for weeks with one of the U.S.'s key international commitments — helping halt Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion into Ukraine — seriously in doubt.
Among the proposals being seriously discussed, according to several people familiar with the private talks, are plans to allow Homeland Security officials to stop migrants from applying for asylum at the U.S. southern border if the number of total crossings exceeds a daily capacity of roughly 5,000. Some one-day totals this year have exceeded 10,000.
Also under discussion are proposals to detain people claiming asylum at the border, including families with children, potentially with electronic monitoring systems.
Negotiators are also eyeing ways to allow authorities to quickly remove migrants who have been in the U.S. for less than two years, even if they are far from the border. But those removals would only extend to people who either have not claimed asylum or were not approved to enter the asylum system, according to one of the people briefed on the negotiations.
The policies resemble ones that President Donald Trump's Republican administration tried to implement to cut border crossings, but many of them were successfully challenged in court. If Congress were to make them law, it would give immigration advocates very little legal ground to challenge the restrictions for those seeking asylum.
Advocates for immigrants warned of a return to anti-immigrant policies and questioned whether they would address problems at the border.
"I never would have imagined that in a moment where we have a Democratic Senate and a Democratic White House we are coming to the table and proposing some of the most draconian immigration policies that there have ever been," said Maribel Hernández Rivera, American Civil Liberties Union director of policy and government affairs.
FILE - Asylum-seekers walk to a U.S. Border Patrol van after crossing the nearby border with Mexico, Tuesday Sept. 26, 2023, near Jacumba Hot Springs, Calif. Migrants continue to arrive to desert campsites along California's border with Mexico, as they await processing. Congress is discussing changes to the immigration system in exchange for providing money to Ukraine in its fight against Russia and Israel for the war with Hamas. (AP Photo/Denis Poroy, File)
The Senate negotiations also found some agreement on raising the threshold for people to claim asylum in initial credible fear screenings.
Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, a key Democratic negotiator, said it should be no surprise there are Democrats unhappy about some of the provisions being discussed, which is why they need a balanced agreement.
“I would just say that it’s clear we have to get a lot of Democratic votes and a lot of Republicans in order to pass this and that means making sure that this is a fair agreement,” Murphy said after a long day of talks.
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. But many senators said there was simply not enough time to iron out an agreement.
But the Senate's most ardent supporters of Ukraine urged congressional leaders to keep lawmakers in Washington until the package is passed. One group of Democratic senators met in Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell's office Wednesday afternoon, and Sen. Michael Bennet, a Colorado Democrat who organized the meeting, emerged calling it a “productive" session.
In a separate meeting, Mayorkas met for roughly two hours at the Capitol with a core negotiating group, but issues still remained in striking an agreement.
“Good progress," Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona said late in the evening.
Even if the Senate stayed in Washington to pass the proposals, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., also would need to push the legislation through his chamber, where opposition from both parties is likely. Hard-line conservatives complain the Senate proposals do not go far enough, while progressive Democrats and Hispanic lawmakers oppose cutting off access to asylum.
At a news conference in front of the Capitol, leaders of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and Congressional Hispanic Caucus vowed to oppose the policies under consideration. They also said Latino lawmakers should have been central to the negotiations.
Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., called it "unconscionable" for the Democratic president to make concessions on border policy without gaining policies that benefit immigrants.
In the Capitol, the senators negotiating the border package also considered asking to have lawmakers return to Washington next week to push through the package.
But their colleagues warned that would be futile unless the House is ready to move quickly.
Americas reeling as flow of migrants reaches historic levels
A migrant who crossed into the U.S. from Mexico is pulled under concertina wire along the Rio Grande river Sept. 21, 2023, in Eagle Pass, Texas. Countries in the Americas are reeling as the flow of migrants reaches historic levels, but international “funds simply aren’t there” for humanitarian needs. Global crises — among them the war in Ukraine, conflict in Sudan, Morocco’s earthquake — have pulled global funds away, said Ugochi Daniels, deputy director of operations for the International Organization for Migration.
Migrants who crossed the Rio Grande river to the U.S. from Mexico seek direction from a guardsman Sept. 22, 2023, in Eagle Pass, Texas. A growing number of countries like Panama and Costa Rica are pleading for international aid in handling the flood of migrants passing through the Americas.
Migrants who crossed the Rio Grande and entered the U.S. from Mexico head to be processed by U.S. Customs and Border Protection Sept. 23, 2023, in Eagle Pass, Texas. As more than 7.2 million people have fled the South American nation's economic and political turmoil, the mass migration has received pennies on the dollar in aid compared to other global migration crises like Syria's.
A woman carries her child after she and other migrants crossed the Rio Grande and entered the U.S. from Mexico, to be processed by U.S. Customs and Border Protection Sept. 23 in Eagle Pass, Texas.
A young girl watches as she and other migrants who crossed the Rio Grande and entered the U.S. from Mexico are lined up for processing by U.S. Customs and Border Protection Sept. 23, 2023, in Eagle Pass, Texas. An emergency was declared when several thousand migrants crossed into Eagle Pass, Texas, over a few days.
Migrants sit atop a northbound freight train, in Irapuato, Mexico on Sept. 23, 2023.
Migrants sleep outside a train station as they wait for the arrival of a northbound freight train, in Irapuato, Mexico, on Sept. 22, 2023.
Migrants travel on a freight train, arriving in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, on Sept. 28, 2023. Despite violence from drug cartels and the dangers that come with riding atop the train cars, such freight trains — known collectively as “The Beast” — have long been used by migrants to travel north.
A migrant man watches as a northbound freight train pulls into Irapuato, Mexico, on Sept. 23, 2023.
Guardsmen encourage migrants waiting on a sandbar to turn around as they attempt cross the Rio Grande from Mexico into the U.S. on Sept. 23, 2023, in Eagle Pass, Texas.
A U.S. Border Patrol agent in a vehicle watches a group of asylum-seekers at a camp after they crossed the nearby border with Mexico, on Sept. 26, 2023, near Jacumba Hot Springs, Calif. Migrants continue to arrive to desert campsites along California's border with Mexico, as they await processing.
Migrants walk beside a freight train they rode to Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, on Sept. 28, 2023. So many migrants are climbing aboard trains that Mexico’s largest railway company said it was suspending 60 freight train runs because of safety concerns, citing a series of injuries and deaths.
Migrants travel on a freight train, arriving in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, on Sept. 28, 2023. A vast smuggling network can now get migrants from Venezuela to central Mexico in as little as just over two weeks, an odyssey that once could take months. Detentions along the U.S.-Mexico border soared 33% from June to July, according to U.S. government figures, reversing a plunge after new asylum restrictions were introduced in May.
Migrants travel on a freight train, arriving in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, on Sept. 28, 2023.
Migrants walk beside a freight train that brought them to Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, on Sept. 28, 2023.
Migrants travel on a freight train, arriving in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, on Sept. 28, 2023.
