Democrats clash over move to add asylum changes to war funding bill

Democrats and Republicans are also discussing whether to expand requirements for asylum seekers to seek protection in “safe third countries” they pass through on their way to the United States, or risk deportation to those countries.

But Republicans are also seeking much more aggressive steps, including changes to parole, the practice in which migrants who may not be eligible to stay in the U.S. are released from detention in the country for a temporary period. They want to reinstate a series of Trump-era policies, including family detention and protocols that forced individuals who could not be held in detention centers to wait in Mexico until it was their turn to appear in immigration court.

“We need conditional language – so much so that I am willing to deny moving forward with any additional proceedings, all of which I would probably support that involve Israel and Ukraine, if not,” he said. Senator Thom Tillis. from North Carolina, and one of the Republican Party’s top negotiators. “We need to have something that we think will substantially reduce future flows.”

Democrats, including the White House, have given no indication that they would be open to changing parole policy, at least not without concessions from Republicans on some of their priorities to soften the blow.

Mr. Murphy, who along with Senator James Lankford, the Republican of Oklahoma, has been at the center of the parole negotiations, proposed adding a measure to help certain immigrants brought to the country illegally as children to citizenship. But the proposal to help that group, which has legal status under a program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, was summarily shot down by Republicans in the room.

“Come to me and tell me we need DACA and a path to citizenship in this bill. It will be the last discussion you have with me about border security,” Mr. Tillis said. “This is not about immigration. This is about solving a disaster that even Biden knows: if he doesn’t make progress, there will be electoral consequences next year.”

Eileen Sullivan reporting contributed.