As Senate Attempts To Hammer Out Deal Over Border Security and Ukraine Aid by Year-End, House Decamps Until January

The Senate will extend its session into next week so that negotiations on a border security–foreign aid package can proceed, Senator Schumer announced on Thursday. Getting more money to Ukraine before the end of the year and curbing the crisis at the southern border have become key priorities for the White House and Republicans. “Over the past few days, negotiations on a path forward to get a national security supplemental done have made good progress,” Mr. Schumer said on the Senate floor. “If we believe something is important and urgent, we should stay and get the job done.”“The Senate will return on Monday,” he announced. “That will give negotiators from the White House, Senate Democrats, and Senate Republicans a time to work through the weekend in an effort to reach a framework agreement. It will then take some time to turn that framework into text. The plan is for the Senate to act as soon as we’re ready … Members need to be here next week. We have to get this done.”Mr. Schumer said his colleagues on the other side of the aisle should stay in town so they can be ready to vote as early as next week. “Our Republican colleagues who have said action on the border is so urgent should have no problem continuing to work next week. We hope to come to an agreement, but no matter what, we will vote on a supplemental proposal next week.”As negotiations close in on a final resolution, liberals in the House say President Biden is betraying his own party and migrants seeking a better life here in America. “The fact that we are considering exchanging the lives of asylum seekers for Ukrainian lives is draconian and immoral,” said Congresswoman Delia Ramirez. Senator Menendez said the president is at risk of becoming the “asylum-denier-in-chief.”House Republicans will likely hate the final bill just as much as, if not more than, their liberal colleagues in the lower chamber. Congressman Chip Roy previously told the Sun that he would vote for nothing less than a House-passed bill known as H.R. 2 that would severely curtail asylum processing and force swift expulsion of migrants encountered at the border. The House passed the legislation earlier this year but has not moved it to the Senate. “I’ve been having conversations with a number of different senators,” Mr. Roy said. “Our position is clear: it’s HR2. … Here’s the bottom line — they’re either going to stuff us on the ability to move any kind of border security because they refuse to move HR2, or they’re never getting Ukraine. If they ever want to have a thought of having Ukraine, then you better sit down and do the border. That’s it. That’s the end of the conservation.”“We don’t need a carving off of HR2. Otherwise, just call Zelensky and say, ‘I’m sorry,’” the congressman said. Speaker Johnson has also put himself in a difficult position after telling senators he would only accept the H.R. 2 framework — a bill that curtails asylum to such an extent that it would never be acceptable to Senate Democrats. After a meeting with President Zelensky on Tuesday, Mr. Johnson said the House has already done its job in passing its own immigration bill but is still willing to look at what Senator negotiators come up with. “The House passed H.2. six months ago … It’s been sitting, collecting dust on Chuck Schumer’s desk,” Mr. Johnson told reporters. “I have told him personally, I have told the national security advisor, the secretary of state, the secretary of defense that these are our conditions.”Two Republican senators said Mr. Johnson has no influence in what they are working on. “That’s not rational,” Senator Lankford told reporters of Mr. Johnson’s H.R. 2 demand. “That’s not how things work.”When asked about Mr. Johnson’s priorities, Senator Tillis simply said, “He’ll get what we send him.”

As Senate Attempts To Hammer Out Deal Over Border Security and Ukraine Aid by Year-End, House Decamps Until January

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