Following the White House and Senate Democrats’ pleas for Republicans to give up on their “Trumpian” immigration proposals, Congress will officially recess on Wednesday until the new year without having reached an agreement to help bolster Ukraine’s war effort and to attempt to stem the tide of illegal immigration at America’s southern border. 

The Senate’s negotiators and Senate leadership had hoped to reach a deal over the weekend so legislative text could be drafted and a vote could proceed later this week, but while progress had been made, there is no deal in sight. 

The lead Democrat in the negotiating room, Senator Murphy, says the Senate needs to find a permanent solution to the border crisis and the asylum system — not just a quick fix that will stem the tide for the remainder of the year. 

“We worked 24-seven all throughout the weekend, and we are closer than ever before to an agreement, but as I’ve said … we need to get this right,” he said. “There’s a reason why Congress hasn’t passed major immigration or border reform in 40 years. This is tough to get to a compromise, and it’s just as tough to write to make sure that you get the ideas down onto paper in a way that makes sure that the policy is implemented correctly.”

On the border, the meteoric rise of illegal migrant crossings has overwhelmed law enforcement and the asylum processing system. On Monday alone, there were more than 14,000 individuals who crossed the southern border from Mexico, many of whom are migrants from South America, Asia, and Africa. 

The backlog of migrants awaiting processing before immigration judges has swelled at a historic pace. In just the last 12 months, the number of those with court dates ballooned to 3 million from 2 million, meaning each immigration judge now has an average of 4,500 pending cases. 

According to an analysis by TRAC Immigration, “If every person with a pending immigration case were gathered together, it would be larger than the population of Chicago, the third largest city in the United States. Indeed, the number of waiting immigrants in the Court’s backlog is now larger than the population found in many states.”

On Wednesday, Fox News reported that a Colombian woman who is seeking asylum after crossing the border has a court date set for the year 2031. “It made me realize the Biden administration is basically providing backdoor amnesty for anyone who wants to show up at the border,” the woman’s lawyer, Matthew Kolken, said. 

The immigration problem does not just affect border states like Arizona and Texas, but is putting a major strain on America’s largest cities. New York and Chicago’s mayors have traveled to the nation’s capital to meet with administration officials about additional assistance or expulsion methods to help solve the migrant crises in their cities. 

The governor of Illinois, J.B. Pritzker, has asked the White House for more stringent border enforcement. The governor of Massachusetts, Maura Healey, who is also a Democrat, recently announced that she would have to dig into her state’s surplus fund to cover the exploding cost of housing migrants at and around Boston — a cost that will balloon to nearly $1 billion next year, up from just more than $200 million in 2023. 

As if the situation at the border wasn’t enough to catalyze a deal before the end of the year, the Department of Defense is now saying it is on the verge of running out of funding for Ukraine’s defense, which could threaten that country’s viability on the battlefield early in the new year. 

On December 15, the comptroller for the defense department, Michael McCord, said in a letter to congressional committee leaders that the department only has enough money left for one more aid package to be sent by the end of the year.

“Once these funds are obligated, the Department will have exhausted the funding available to us for security assistance to Ukraine,” Mr. McCord wrote. “It is essential that Congress act without delay on the Administration’s pending supplemental request. Doing so is in our clear national interest, and our assistance is vitally needed so Ukraine can continue its fight for freedom and to ensure Russia continues to fail in Ukraine.”

The chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Congressman Mike McCaul, vented his frustrations about the lack of progress on a Ukraine-immigration deal on Tuesday. “Very disappointing that the US Congress seems unable to organize a vote on an issue they have been discussing for months,” the chairman wrote on X.

A retiring Senate dealmaker, Senator Manchin, took his colleagues to task in a statement on Wednesday, saying that it’s an embarrassment to leave town without a deal on Ukraine and Israel aid and immigration reform. 

“We are facing a turning point in history — a sold-out Southern Border that is facing an unprecedented number of migrants flowing through every day, and two of our most important allies are fighting for their lives to protect their democracies — and yet, the Senate has decided to pack up and head home,” he said. “Let me be perfectly clear — we should not be abandoning our responsibilities in favor of a holiday vacation. The American people deserve better.”