Senate GOP pushes back on Democrats’ criticism amid border talks stalemate

Tensions are high in the U.S. Senate as negotiations falter on a border deal that is necessary to pass President Joe Biden’s $106 billion defense spending legislation.

Negotiators on both sides say they have not made progress in a week on the talks, which have centered on possible changes to federal asylum policy and how the Biden administration uses the humanitarian parole authority.

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Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), the Democrats’ lead negotiator, have accused Republicans of making unreasonable asks that would not have majority support in the Democratic conference.

“Progress on the national security package has been on ice for weeks because Republicans have injected partisan and extreme immigration measures into the debate,” Schumer said on Monday.

They’ve also said that the GOP is caving to House Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-LA) demand that the border provision in Biden’s defense package, which also includes assistance for Ukraine, Taiwan, and Israel, be the Senate’s version of H.R. 2, House Republicans’ signature border bill.

Republicans, meanwhile, are rejecting those accusations – especially the latter one.

“We are not asking for all of H.R. 2, I know that’s their claim all the time,” Sen. James Lankford (R-OK), the lead GOP negotiator in the talks, said in an interview with the Washington Examiner on Tuesday.

“We understand the dynamics. The House passed something without Democrat support. We don’t have that privilege. We have to do everything in a bipartisan way in the Senate. That’s just the nature of the Senate, especially one that’s equally divided,” the Oklahoma senator continued.

“We’re aware we’re not in the House, we’re in the Senate. We’re keenly aware of that, but we also understand that this can’t be just something decorative.”

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT), one of the Senate’s most moderate members, found the Democrats’ position indefensible, telling reporters on Tuesday that, “We want to support Ukraine and Israel. We’ve indicated that our deal is we will do that if they close the border and they don’t want to do that.”

“They’re not going to get [a deal] unless they close the border,” Romney continued. “But for them, keeping an open border is more important than the security of Europe in the Middle East, which is astonishing to me, but that’s where we are.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), one of Ukraine’s staunchest Republican advocates, said on Tuesday that he would advise GOP senators to vote against advancing the spending package given the need for a border agreement.

“We need to make the point, hopefully for the final time, that we insist on meaningful changes to the border,” the Republican leader said.

Even critics of Biden and Senate leadership’s approach of packaging the three foreign aid bills and a border deal together took issue with Democrats’ criticism.

“I think we should be dealing with these things individually, but Joe Biden is the one that had border issues in his call,” Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) told the Washington Examiner. “He had four issues, including border, so I think the reality is Chuck Schumer is disappointed that he can’t get 60 votes.”

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Schmitt pointed to the lawsuit he won as Missouri’s attorney general that required the Biden administration to enforce Title 42, also known as the Remain in Mexico policy. The senator said the administration “didn’t even enforce that” after the Supreme Court issued its ruling, which leaves him skeptical that this president would even enforce a congressionally approved deal.

“I’m skeptical of any language changes if they’re not going to be enforced,” he said, adding of the Biden administration: “I think they have a real credibility issue.”