Majority Leader Chuck Schumer will bring the bipartisan border agreement that was negotiated earlier this year by a group of senators back to the floor this week for an independent vote, he said in a letter to his colleagues released Sunday night.
The decision to hold another vote on this legislation comes as Senate Democrats attempt to renew their pressure on the southern border ahead of the 2024 elections.
“We are hopeful that this bipartisan proposal will bring serious Republicans back to the table to advance this bipartisan solution for our border,” Schumer wrote in a letter to his colleagues. “I’ll be honest: I don’t expect all Democrats to support this legislation. Many of our colleagues do not support some of the provisions of this legislation, nor do I expect all Republicans to agree with all of the provisions. legislation must be shaped to deal with an issue as complex and politically charged as our nation’s immigration laws.”
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Ultimately, it is very unlikely that a vote on this legislation now would lead to a different outcome.
The bipartisan border bill was negotiated over several months by the senator. Chris Murphy, DCt., Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz., and Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla. The legislation was negotiated after Senate Republicans said they would not vote to move forward with additional aid to Ukraine without implementing provisions to reinforce the southern border.
Lawmakers worked behind the scenes for months to negotiate the legislation. But the bill, which introduced changes to parole and asylum provisions, was rejected almost immediately after its release by nearly the entire Senate Republican conference in the appeal from former president Donald Trump.
“The former president made it clear that he would rather preserve the issue for his campaign than resolve it in a bipartisan manner. When the time is right, many of our [Republican] colleagues abruptly reversed course from their previous support, announcing their newfound opposition to the bipartisan proposal,” Schumer said in the letter.
Senate Republicans ended up reversing course and approving funding for Ukraine without border provisions, so Schumer said he will now hold a separate vote on the border bill without any follow-up.
But Senate Republicans who spoke to ABC News last week said that if Schumer brought up the border bill again, it wouldn’t change their perspective on voting for it.
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Sen. Thom Tillis, R-North Carolina, who championed bipartisan discussions on the border before ultimately voting against moving forward with the final product in February, said Schumer is trying to divert attention from a border crisis that Tillis believes is instead Ultimately, the work of President Biden.
“Let’s be real. They’re looking at the polls. They’re being attacked; Biden is being attacked for the failure at the border,” Tillis said. “So Schumer will do everything he can to say ‘nothing to see here, this failure isn’t real’ and it is real. And he knows it won’t go away.”
Senator Schumer tells Democrats he will reintroduce a bipartisan border bill originally appeared in abcnews.go.com
