Senate delays winter break for vote on Ukraine aid as House jets off
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Thursday he would keep the chamber into its scheduled holiday break to finalize and vote on a bill providing additional aid to Ukraine and stepping up US border security.
Schumer (D-NY) announced that he will call the Senate back into session Monday and keep them in “no matter what” until a vote on a supplemental spending package — despite some Republicans scoffing that the Democratic leader’s timeline was a pipe dream.
Negotiators from both parties have been scrambling to iron out a compromise on immigration issues, which Republicans insist is mandatory before they clear any further Ukraine assistance.
“Over the last few days, negotiations on a path forward to getting a national security supplemental done have made good progress,” Schumer said on the floor.
“If we believe something is important and urgent, we should stay and get the job done. That is certainly the case with the supplemental.”
Some Republicans were unconvinced that an agreement could be reached by year’s end due to the complexities of putting legislative text together, despite negotiators touting progress on a framework.
“He’s dreaming,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) told CNN of Schumer’s goal of ramming through a deal next week.
“I could care less,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), a staunch supporter of Ukraine, told Punchbowl News. “I’m looking for outcomes, not timelines. There’s no legislative text.”
On the House side, many lawmakers had already left for their home districts after Thursday morning’s votes, with the chamber not due to reconvene until Jan. 9.
Schumer said he had asked House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to reconsider his earlier opposition to keeping lawmakers in DC until the Senate could complete their work on the bill.
“Could we come back?” Johnson said during a Wall Street Journal event Tuesday “I would stay here indefinitely, but I don’t know that all of our colleagues will be able to do that.”
Underlying negotiations is a deep rift between Republicans and Democrats over how to address asylum seekers pouring across the southwest border.
During fiscal year 2023, more than 2.47 million encounters were reported along the Mexico frontier, with more than 240,000 migrants apprehended in October, according to data from US Customs and Border Protection.
When migrants claim asylum at the border, many of them are typically given paperwork for a court date and then released into the US.
Republicans have pressed for some sort of authority to curtail the influx of asylum seekers, which has rankled progressives who believe the US has a moral obligation to take them in.
Recently, the White House stepped up its involvement in negotiations, reportedly dispatching Chief of Staff Jeff Zients to join in on the discussions led by Sens. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and James Lankford (R-Okla.)
The White House has expressed openness to a border authority to expel migrants without screenings for asylum under certain conditions when daily crossing levels are exceedingly high, the Washington Post reported.
They’ve also reportedly floated an expansion of detention facilities and a ramping up of deportations to assuage Republicans.
Without confirming details of the agreement, President Biden has publicly indicated that he’s made a compromise offer to Republicans already.
That does not appear to be sitting well with some Democrats.
“It is truly shameful that President Biden and his administration are considering selling out migrants and asylum seekers in order placate extreme Republicans who are jeopardizing our national security and that of our allies just to score a political point,” recently indicted Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) fumed in a statement Tuesday.
“We [Democrats] have to put together a coalition [for the 2024 election],” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) told CNN Thursday. “That coalition involves a lot of young voters. It involves a lot of immigrant voters and folks of color. This issue of immigration is critically important to them.”
Still, lawmakers close to the negotiations insist that progress has been made.
“We can see the deal. We have a lot to go to get there. But I can see it,” Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) told Politico Thursday.
“They’re really talking about picking up the pen and actually writing the words down. So it’s that close,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) told Punchbowl News.
Schumer himself admitted that this “might be one of the most difficult things we’ve had to work through,” but added that “we have to get this done.”
Lankford said he was “gonna keep working as long as it’s daylight,” but was hesitant about the odds of getting an agreement soon given the “incredibly technical” nature of immigration law.
“At this point, if things don’t come together very, very quickly, this moves to January,” he told Fox News Digital Thursday..
The Oklahoman Republican added that the “White House so far has not been willing to actually put things down in writing.”
Biden initially asked Congress to green light $24 billion to Ukraine back in August. Congress declined to do so amid a bitter House Republican civil war over government funding.
Then, in October, Biden upped the price tag to over $106 billion in a package that features $61.4 billion for Ukraine as well as funding for Israel, Taiwan, and the border.
This week, he needled Republicans that failure to pass the supplemental would be a “Christmas gift” to Putin.
Thus far, Congress has approved roughly $113 billion in both military and humanitarian aid to the war-torn Eastern European country, but not all that money has been spent yet.
The administration announced this week a $200 million military aid package to Ukraine, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky privately told lawmakers earlier this week that Ukraine aid likely won’t be completely depleted until February
