Senate border negotiators must ‘sweeten the deal’ for it to pass the House: Gonzales

Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX) said on Sunday that senators negotiating the bipartisan border security piece of the defense supplemental spending package need to “sweeten the deal” if they want it to pass the House.

Gonzales, whose district includes over 800 miles of the southern border, made the comments while discussing the ongoing talks during an appearance on CBS’s Face the Nation. Sens. James Lankford (R-OK) and Chris Murphy (D-CT) have been leading the negotiations, which have centered largely on changes to federal asylum policy and how the Biden administration uses the humanitarian parole authority.

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There have also been reports that the White House has offered to establish a new border expulsion law and increase mandatory detention rates as part of the negotiations.

“I think it’s a good start,” Gonzales told the network. “I think the devil’s in the details.”

“The Senate is much different than the House,” he continued. “The Senate is going to have its battle getting to 60 votes. The House is going to have its battle getting to 218. And we can do that, but I think … we have to sweeten the deal.”

Gonzales suggested that negotiators include language labeling the Mexican cartels as terror organizations and “holding these smugglers accountable that cause damage and kill Americans.”

A bipartisan working group of senators has spent weeks negotiating a border security deal, which would be added to a defense spending bill that includes aid for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. Negotiators on both sides have acknowledged that the border measure is critical to passing the legislation through both chambers.

Negotiators stayed in Washington D.C. over the weekend to meet about the potential deal and will remain in Washington D.C. this week while their colleagues are in their home states for the Christmas recess.

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Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), a supporter of the larger supplemental package as long as it includes “credible” border policy changes, told reporters this week that getting the bill to President Joe Biden’s desk before the end of the year was unlikely.

“All I’ve said is it is practically impossible even if we reach an agreement to craft it and get it through the Senate and get it through the House before Christmas,” McConnell said on Tuesday. “It doesn’t mean it’s not important; even though we have been emphasizing the border, I want to remind everyone on the importance of Ukraine.”