Migrant Legislation To Reach Senate Vote This Week: What's At Stake With The New Border Deal

On Sunday, senators unveiled a new bipartisan bill that is mixing funding for Ukraine, Taiwan and Israel with a crackdown on illegal immigration through a new border deal with the White House.

The bill has to overcome an uncertain vote in the Senate, which is not even its biggest threat: House Republicans have declared it "dead on arrival."

What's In The New Border Deal?

Approximately $20 billion of the bill's $118-billion funding package would be directed to increasing border security by hiring new border patrol officials, hiring more asylum workers, financing expansions for detention centers as well as increasing screening capacity for illegal drugs.

The most innovative part of the bill would be the launch of a new system that would trigger a border shutdown if a certain number of unauthorized migrants are encountered at the border on a daily or weekly basis.

If the number of illegal migrants reaches a daily average of 5,000 in one week or 8,500 in one single day, the border would immediately shut down for asylum seekers and all other unauthorized migrants until encounters drop back down to 75% of those thresholds. The president would be granted the special power to order a border shutdown if unauthorized migrants reach a daily average of 4,000 in a given week.

Migrants with asylum appointments would still be met at the border, which would need to process at least 1,400 appointments in moments of border shutdown.

The process for seeking asylum would become more complicated for those arriving at the border without authorization. The decision to grant asylum would fall on a new internal board instead of the courts. The new process would raise the bar for qualifying as an asylum seeker, requiring people to show more proof of not being able to safely return to their home countries.

The bill would also change certain policies that streamline the immigration process in particular cases.

It provides a pathway for lawful permanent status for Afghans who fled Afghanistan after the Taliban took over following the U.S. withdrawal from the country.

It also creates 250,000 new visas for green-card eligible families and employment-based workers over the course of five years.

Will The Deal Pass?

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is expected to raise the bill for a procedural vote Wednesday that would allow the chamber to begin debating the bill, according to Politico. It is not yet clear whether the legislation will receive enough votes to pass this instance.

President Joe Biden said in a Sunday statement that he strongly supports the bill. 

"We've reached an agreement on a bipartisan national security deal that includes the toughest and fairest set of border reforms in decades," he said.

"It will make our country safer, make our border more secure, treat people fairly and humanely while preserving legal immigration, consistent with our values as a nation."

The deal faces even worse odds at the House. Last week, Speaker Mike Johnson wrote to his House colleagues that a package of the sort would not stand a chance in the House, although the clear terms of the package were not publicly known by then.

"If rumors about the contents of the draft proposal are true, it would have been dead on arrival in the House anyway," Johnson said.

The House speaker would rather raise a separate bill providing $17 billion in financial support for Israel, which could come to a House vote next week.

"House Republicans have to decide," Biden said in his statement. "Do they want to solve the problem? Or do they want to keep playing politics with the border?"

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries called House Republican plans to undermine the deal with a separate Israel bill "a cynical attempt to undermine the Senate's bipartisan effort."

Conservative House Republicans were quick to dismiss the deal, arguing the bill "accepts 5,000 illegal immigrants a day and gives automatic work permits to asylum recipients," as House Majority Leader Steve Scalise wrote on X.

House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik said the bill would "further incentivize thousands of illegals to pour in across our borders daily." 

Both Republican House members align with former President Donald Trump, who previously ordered Republicans not to pass any border legislation during the Biden presidency.

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