After months of intense and detailed talks, Sen. Chris Murphy indicated over the weekend that negotiators have reached an agreement on a package that would address border policy, immigration reforms, and aid to Ukraine. “We do have a bipartisan deal,” the Connecticut Democrat told CNN. “We’re finishing the text right now.”
Aside from the key players involved in the process, the details of the agreement are scarce, though as Politico reported, proponents believe a Senate vote could come quite quickly.
Senators could vote on a bipartisan immigration deal as soon as next week, one of the top negotiators said Sunday. But first, they have to sell it to their members. And that part is looking tricky.
Murphy summarized the broader dynamic nicely: “The question is whether Republicans are going to listen to Donald Trump, who wants to preserve chaos at the border, because he thinks it’s a winning political issue for him, or whether we are going to pass legislation which would be the biggest bipartisan reform of our border immigration laws in 40 years and would give the president of the United States, whether that president is a Republican or a Democrat, new, important power to be able to better manage the flow of people across the border.”
President Joe Biden, meanwhile, appears to be upping the ante, issuing a written statement on Friday night saying he’s prepared to use new emergency authorities to “shut down the border when it becomes overwhelmed” — but only if Congress approves the pending, bipartisan package.
A day later, the Democrat reiterated the position, apparently in the hopes of giving the burgeoning legislation an added boost.
At least for now, House Republicans have condemned the bipartisan agreement, and House Speaker Mike Johnson declared on Friday that the emerging deal — if it actually comes together — would be “dead on arrival” in the lower chamber.
As a political matter, Democrats believe this creates an opportunity to turn the…
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