With the deal on the border and Ukraine close, the Republican divide threatens to kill both
Senator James Lankford, the Oklahoma Republican and a staunch conservative, this week trumpeted the immigration compromise he negotiated with Senate Democrats and White House officials as one that will be “by far the most conservative border security bill in four decades.” become.
Speaker Mike Johnson, on the other hand, sent a fundraising message Friday denouncing the pending deal as a Democratic scam. “My answer is NO. Absolutely NOT,” his post read, adding: “This is the hill I will die on.”
The Republican disconnect explains why, with an elusive bipartisan deal on immigration seemingly as close as it has been in years on Capitol Hill, the prospects for a bill are bleak. It's also why hopes of breaking the impasse over sending more U.S. aid to Ukraine are likely to be dashed by hardline Republicans in the House of Representatives.
The situation reflects the divide that divides the Republican Party. On one side are the right-wing MAGA allies of former President Donald J. Trump, an America First isolationist who implemented draconian immigration policies while in office. On the other side is a dwindling group of more mainstream traditionalists who believe the United States should play an assertive role in defending democracy on the world stage.
The two wings coalesced last fall around a bit of legislative racketeering: They would only agree to President Biden's request to send some $60 billion more to Ukraine for its fight against Russian aggression if he agreed to their demands to ease migration in the United States. border with Mexico. But now they disagree about the price they should charge.
Far-right Republicans in the House of Representatives, who are much more opposed to aid to Ukraine, have argued that the bipartisan border compromise brokered by their Senate counterparts is unacceptable. And they say outright that they don't want to give Mr. Biden the opportunity in an election year to take credit for the crackdown on unauthorized immigration.
Instead, with Mr. Trump protesting the deal From the campaign trail, they are demanding a return to the stricter immigration policies he imposed, which have no chance of passing the Democratic-controlled Senate. That includes a revival of the Remain in Mexico policy, under which migrants seeking to enter the United States were blocked and forced to stay elsewhere while they waited to appear in immigration court to plead their cases.
While Republican Senate leaders have touted the emerging deal as a unique opportunity for a breakthrough at the border, far-right members of the House of Representatives have dismissed it as the work of establishment Republicans out of touch with the Republican base.
“Let's talk about Mitch McConnell — he has a 6 percent approval rating,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, said of the Senate minority leader. “He wouldn't be the one he would listen to if he was making deals at the border.”
She said that after Trump's decisive victory in the Iowa caucuses, “it is time for all Republicans, the Senate and the House of Representatives, to get behind his policies.”
On the proposed aid to Ukraine, Ms. Greene threatens to remove Mr. Johnson from the speakership if he brings it up.
“My red line is Ukraine,” she said, expressing confidence that the speaker would follow through on her threat. 'I make it very clear to him. We will not see it in the House of Representatives – that is my expectation.”
The situation is particularly fraught for Mr. Johnson, the novice speaker of the House of Representatives whose own sympathies lie with the far right but who faces enormous institutional pressure — from Mr. Biden, Democrats in Congress and his fellow Republicans in the Senate – to embrace an agreement. combining changes in border policy with aid to Ukraine.
Mr. Johnson has positioned himself as a Trump loyalist, quickly backing the former president after winning the gavel and saying he has spoken regularly with the former president about the Senate immigration deal and everything else. After enraging hard-right Republicans on Thursday by pushing through a short-term funding bill to avoid a shutdown, the speaker has little reason to enrage them again and defy the wishes of Mr. Trump, who pushed the Senate compromise into has brought into disrepute.
“I don't think we should make a border deal at all unless we get EVERYTHING it takes to stop the INVASION,” Trump wrote on social media this week.
Democrats have already agreed to substantial concessions during the talks, including making it harder for migrants to seek asylum; expanding detention and deportation authorities; and halting the flow of migrants when crossing attempts reach levels that would overwhelm detention centers – around 5,000 migrants per day.
But far-right Republicans have rejected the compromise out of hand, saying the changes would still lead to many immigrants entering the country without permission every year.
Politics during the elections play a major role. Representative Bob Good, Republican of Virginia and chairman of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, said passage of the Senate bill would give Mr. Biden “political cover” for his failures at the border.
“Democrats want to give the impression that they care about the border, and then run out the clock so that Biden wins reelection,” Mr. Good said. “It would be terrible if the country gave political cover to the facilitators of the border invasion.”
Rep. Tim Burchett, Republican of Tennessee, said that while Mr. Johnson broke with federal spending rights because he feared a government shutdown, “I think there is more unity on immigration.”
Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, warned that the immigration compromise was a “unique opportunity” that would not be available to Republicans next year even if they win majorities in both chambers of Congress and back would win. the White House.
“The Democrats won't give us anything close to getting 60 votes in the Republican-majority U.S. Senate,” he said.
Many mainstream Republicans in the House of Representatives believe Johnson would be making a terrible mistake if he heeded the advice of the most far-right voices and refused to embrace an immigration deal. They argue that this would squander an opportunity to effect important policy changes and the political momentum that would follow if we showed that Republicans can govern.
“Mayors of big cities are talking about the same thing that conservatives in Texas are talking about,” said Rep. Patrick T. McHenry, Republican of North Carolina, a close ally of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy. “Take the moment, dude. Take the policy victory, put it aside and go back for more. That is always the goal.”
But for some Republicans, achieving a policy victory is less important than continuing to fight a political issue in an election year.
“It is worse than doing nothing to provide political cover for a sham border security bill that does nothing to actually secure the border,” Mr. Good said.
Mr. Burchett, one of eight Republicans who voted to impeach Mr. McCarthy, rolled his eyes when asked about Mr. McHenry's pleas not to make the perfect the enemy of the good.
“McHenry is leaving,” he said of the congressman, who has announced he will not seek re-election next year.