Ukraine funding’s fate hangs on thorny immigration issue in Senate

The fate of U.S. security assistance to Ukraine rests on lawmakers’ ability to broker a deal on an issue that’s eluded their grasp for decades - immigration.

After Republicans demanded border security changes to send billions more in aid to Ukraine, which is struggling to fend off a Russian invasion, as well as to Israel and Taiwan, a bipartisan group of seven senators has been tasked with coming to an agreement on thorny immigration issues.

Congress has not taken meaningful action on immigration in decades, with broad reform deals in 2006 and 2013 failing to make it into law and the negotiating groups’ Republican members facing fierce blowback from conservative voters.

That track record has led to a glum tone on Capitol Hill as a small group of senators is stuck on issues including whether to force some migrants to apply for asylum from Mexico or other countries instead of at the U.S.-Mexico border, and whether and how to reduce the number of migrants who are given parole and allowed to wait for their court dates inside the U.S.

“I wish Republicans weren’t demanding that we solve a really complicated domestic political issue in order to keep Putin from marching through Europe, but that’s where we are,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), one of the lead negotiators.

The politics have shifted even further on immigration since those earlier failed deals, with a majority of voters disapproving of President Biden’s handling of the border and Republican and Democratic lawmakers moving further apart on potential solutions. Some Democrats concede that changes to the asylum system are needed and could help the party politically, but face ire from parts of their base that view the proposals as a betrayal of the Democratic Party’s commitment to more welcoming immigration policies.

Republicans have moved to the right on the issue and do not want to discuss adding protections for undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children, called Dreamers - a previously bipartisan priority that regularly came up in past immigration talks - or any other paths to legalization.

That’s caused 11 Democratic senators, including Sen. Alex Padilla (Calif.) and the No. 2. Senate Democrat Richard J. Durbin (Ill.), to sign onto a statement opposing any changes to asylum law being included in the package. “Any proposal considering permanent changes to our asylum and immigration system needs to include a clear path to legalization for long-standing undocumented immigrants,” the senators said in a statement on Wednesday.

Republicans argue that Democrats should want a deal on an issue they face disapproval on, and dismiss Democrats’ criticism that they are tying crucial international security issues to a domestic albatross.

“The Dems need to understand that we view this - the southern border - as a national security crisis,” said Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.). “And if we’re going to do a national security supplemental, it’s got to include the border.”

Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Tuesday that if an immigration agreement is not reached, he would proceed to a vote on the funding package next week anyway. But Thune said Republicans are willing to block a vote on the measure if the border changes they want are not included.

“This is not one of these cases when we can repeat and regurgitate partisan talking points, fail to come to an agreement, and then blame the other side for that failure and go home and believe that we can come back next week,” said Sen. Michael F. Bennet (D-Colo.), another of the main negotiators and one of Ukraine’s strongest backers in Congress. “Ukraine is out of bullets. They’re giving up their lives.”

Biden in October asked Congress to approve $106 billion in emergency aid that covered funding for Ukraine, Israel, the Indo-Pacific region, border security and global humanitarian aid. Many House Republicans are skeptical of sending more money to Ukraine and earlier this month, they passed a stand-alone aid bill for Israel, pairing it with cuts to the Internal Revenue Service. That measure was dead on arrival in the Democratic-controlled Senate, where there is still broad support among Republicans for Ukraine.

But GOP leaders demanded any funding measure include immigration policy changes in addition to border security funding. It’s a strategy House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has endorsed, even as some of his conference’s far-right lawmakers have said they are not interested in voting for a Ukraine aid package, with or without border changes.

Senate negotiators, including Murphy, Bennet, Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), James Lankford (R-Okla.), Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) have homed in on several main policy areas, according to multiple sources briefed on the talks, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

The lawmakers have made the most headway on proposals that would tighten the criteria for asylum seekers to enter the U.S. and qualify for a hearing before an immigration judge.

But Republicans argue changing that standard only applies to a small fraction of migrants who show up at the border every day, and would like to see more sweeping changes to policy for migrants who enter the country illegally. Many are detained by law enforcement, then released on parole until they can appear before an immigration judge - a hearing that could be months or years away. Such a change would require building new detention centers for migrants, lawmakers said, along with spending for border patrol agents and immigration judges.

“Parole is kind of an easy way to be able to say it, but it’s really what to do with that 7,000 people that are just released into the country,” Lankford said, referring to the number of migrants who he said did not apply for asylum at the border but were released to await court dates on one day in October. “Currently, they are released by parole. So the issue is not parole, it’s what do you do with those 7,000 people?”

Republicans are also pushing to codify a Trump-era rule that would deny asylum claims for migrants that pass through a “safe third country” on their way to the U.S. border. The Biden administration in February announced plans to implement a similar but more lenient program, and is defending the policy against a challenge in federal court. A number of Republicans said Tuesday that they would find it hard to support the spending bill without it, but Democrats have so far resisted agreeing to the change.

“Even if you believe people are allowed to migrate, they don’t necessarily have a right to migrate to the U.S.,” said Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), a member of the 2013 bipartisan “gang of eight” that drafted failed immigration legislation. “If what they’re fleeing is oppression, that doesn’t mean necessarily that the U.S. is the only place they can go to.”

Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) said it would be “very tough” to win Republican support without the third-country asylum provision, while Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) said it was the only part of the deal that would “make a real difference.”

Immigrant rights groups have been reacting with alarm as the negotiations proceed, putting pressure on Democratic senators not to strike a deal.

“Republicans, with apparent complicity of some Democrats, seem ready to make permanent new and damaging policy changes that would gut the asylum system and create more chaos and disorder at the southern border,” said Vanessa Cárdenas, executive director of the America’s Voice advocacy group, in a statement. “No Democrat should advance key elements of Donald Trump and Stephen Miller’s wishlist.”

In the meantime, Ukraine’s fate hangs in the balance, lawmakers said. By the end of the year, according to some estimates, the country’s small but resilient military could face crucial materiel shortages, imperiling territory fighters have liberated from Russian control.

“I’m surprised they’ve lasted as long as they have. I’m expecting, soon, to see operational effect - on the battlefield, artillery units saying they can’t fire at lucrative targets because they just don’t have enough ammunition; maybe medical units without pharmaceuticals,” said Mark Cancian, senior adviser with the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank.

That has animated negotiators, especially Democrats, to continue talks even as Murphy characterized GOP proposals as “Republican demands [that] are pretty, pretty high.”

“That’s why we’re hanging in there the way we are,” Bennet said. “I don’t just mean me. I mean, all of us, including the Republicans. I think there are a lot of us on both sides of the aisle who really understand just how high the stakes are.”