BarcelonaGreen light in the US Senate. After months of negotiations, Democratic and Republican senators on Sunday introduced a joint bill to send aid to Ukraine and Israel, which was finally tied, as Republicans wanted, to a tougher immigration policy. However, at the moment, it seems unlikely that the bill, which has a budget of $118 billion, will be implemented. In fact, House Speaker Mike Johnson declared the matter “dead on arrival” if it eventually reaches his chamber. On the one hand, because of opposition from the more hardline wing of Republicans, but also because of the difficulty that more progressive Democrats have in agreeing to limit asylum policy in the way proposed in the law.
President Joe Biden, who promised in January to close the border immediately if the law goes ahead, has appealed to Congress to approve it and send it to his desk as soon as possible. “If you believe, as I do, that we must secure the border now, doing nothing is not an option,” he said in a statement, adding that “House Republicans must decide whether they want to solve the problem or want to fix it.” Continue playing politics with the borders.
The law stipulates the allocation of $60,000 million to Ukraine, $14,000 million to Israel (both in the form of military aid), and $10,000 million to Gaza in the concept of humanitarian aid. While 20 thousand million will be allocated to strengthen the borders. In this area, the restrictions raised are among the most important that Congress has evaluated in years, according to a report The New York Times. For example, they include strict restrictions on the processing of asylum applications, facilitating detention and limiting the number of people who can cross the border from Mexico to 5,000 people per week (bearing in mind that December saw a peak of up to 10,000 people crossing in today). In practice, this means that illegal immigrants who arrive in the United States after exceeding this threshold will not be eligible to seek asylum and will be deported shortly thereafter. A major change compared to current legislation. In addition, the president will gain new powers to immediately deport migrants if authorities are overwhelmed with asylum applications.
The law does not convince either Democrats or Republicans
The bill does not include some Republican demands, such as building a border wall and limiting parole for asylum seekers, who can now live and work legally in the United States while they wait for the administration to respond, sometimes for years. But at the same time, the restrictions have drawn criticism from Democrats, who see immigration policy as too restrictive, as is the case with Senator Alex Padilla, Democrat of California. In a statement, he expressed his regret that “the agreement includes a new version of the failed Trump-era immigration policy that will lead to more chaos at the border, not less.”
For this reason, it is not at all clear whether the bill will advance in the Senate itself, where it is expected to undergo an initial vote on Wednesday. Donald Trump and other Republican leaders are campaigning among members of their party to block the bill from moving forward.
But if it is precisely Republicans who have been calling for tougher immigration policy for years, how come party leaders and Donald Trump himself now oppose passage of the law? According to the majority of the American media, Republicans under Trump would be willing to abandon border protection for the sake of purely electoral maneuvers. If they reach an agreement with their Democratic rivals to solve the core problem of immigration, it will be Joe Biden who will hang up the medal and emerge as the American “savior.” Instead, if it is not approved, Trump hopes to maintain until the elections the rhetoric he has been repeating in recent years, according to which the United States is suffering from an “invasion” of migrants from the southern border.
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