Senate to hold new vote on border security bill
May 23 (UPI) -- The Senate is set to bring a second vote Thursday on an immigration border security bill that was negotiated by a group of senators but killed by Republicans after former President Donald Trump spoke out against it.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said on the Senate floor Wednesday the vote will reveal who's serious about actually fixing the border and who just wants to talk about it without acting.
"Senators face an important decision: will both sides come together to advance a bipartisan border security bill, or will partisanship get in the way yet again?" Schumer said.
President Joe Biden similarly urged Congressional leaders, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., to "stop playing politics and act quickly to pass this bipartisan border legislation, according to a White House outline of talks on Monday.
The Senate is currently comprised of 48 Democrats, 49 Republicans and three Independents and the bill is not expected to reach the 60-vote threshold to pass with Republicans expected to maintain their opposition and some Democrats also expected to vote against it.
Republican leaders in the House have also said the bill would be "dead on arrival" in the chamber even if it did make its way out of the Senate.
The bipartisan border bill was part of a larger National Security Supplemental put together by Senators James Lankford, R-Okla., Chris Murphy, D-Conn., and Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz, that would provide billions of dollars in funding for the Southwest border and grant the president emergency authority to shut down the border if unauthorized border crossings reach a certain level.
The bill had Republican support until House Speaker Mike Johnson called it "dead on arrival" after Trump voiced his opposition to the measure as part of his presidential campaign.
As that bill appeared headed toward failure, Biden publicly blamed Trump for the change in stance among Republicans, saying Trump wanted "a political issue to run against me on."
Lankford, who voted for the bill he helped negotiate in February, now says he will vote against it.
He called the vote Schumer plans Thursday a political prop.
"Let's keep working until we actually solve this," Lankford said to reporters Wednesday. "Not just bring up things that we know are not going to pass."
Democrats accuse Republicans of not really wanting to solve the border problems, but only to continue to campaign on the issue without resolving it.
"I'm angry because I got texts from my colleagues on the Republican side saying, 'Look, you guys need to get serious about the border'" Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, said during a press conference on Wednesday. "Some of the Republicans that I respect the most were really forceful with us, so we listened. We developed a piece of legislation that I don't love, but I know is tough enough to get the job done. Yet they abandoned ship because Donald Trump told them to do so."
