Dems, GOP rage as border deal collapses
lead image
NASA cut hundreds of jobs Tuesday at one of its key laboratories that sends robots to Mars, despite dozens of lawmakers urging the agency and the White House to avoid such a move.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory has been at the center of controversy between California lawmakers and NASA, which “paused” its Mars Sample Return program late last year due to Congress failing to pass a year-long budget to fund the space agency.
“Earlier today, JPL announced a reduction in its workforce. These painful decisions are hard, and we will feel this loss across the NASA family,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement. “To spend more than that amount, with no final legislation in place, would be unwise and spending money NASA does not have.”
Nelson noted that an independent review board is examining the future of the sample return program, which aims to bring rocks and dust collected by the Perseverance rover on the Martian surface back to Earth in 2033 for a “detailed chemical and physical analysis,” NASA said.
The cuts will affect about 530 people at the lab, about 8 percent of the workforce, and an additional 40 contractors, JPL said in a statement. About 6,300 people work at the laboratory, according to its website.
Some of the lab’s legendary accomplishments include building Explorer 1, the first American satellite, as well as designing and remotely operating the Viking spacecraft that first landed on the surface of Mars, the Galileo probe of Jupiter and its moons, and Cassini’s 14-year journey snapping images around Saturn.
“Even in the wake of current challenges, JPL will continue to help drive key upcoming NASA missions,” Nelson said.
Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif.), a lawmaker leading the push to prevent job cuts at the lab, said that she’s “extremely disappointed” in the decision.
“These cuts will devastate workers and Southern California in the short-term, and they hurt the long-term viability of not just our Mars Exploration Program but also many years of scientific discovery to come,” she said in a statement.
Chu promised to keep fighting to reverse NASA’s “misguided” budget cuts to the program and said she’s hopeful that lawmakers can broker a deal with the Biden administration to restore funding to the levels necessary to rehire workers.
In early February, more than 40 California lawmakers expressed concerns about the decision to reduce funding to the Mars Sample Return mission, worrying that the cuts could kill the program entirely.
“We are gravely concerned that the administration’s decision to reallocate funds away from the Mars program would essentially cancel this high-priority program without Congressional authorization,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter to White House budget director Shalanda Young.
The letter, signed by 44 lawmakers, was led by Chu, Rep. Adam Schiff, and Sen. Alex Padilla. The lawmakers urged Young’s office to obtain a plan from NASA to complete the next stage of the mission, maintain the program’s budget and refrain from further “premature” cuts.
In November, six California lawmakers called on the space agency to reverse its decision to proactively cut funding to the program and instead wait for the appropriations picture to be sorted out before they adjust. The lab is located near Pasadena, California.
“This short-sighted and misguided decision by NASA will cost hundreds of jobs and a decade of lost science, and it flies in the face of congressional authority,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter to the agency. “We are mystified by NASA’s rash decision to suggest at this stage of the appropriations process that any cuts would be necessary.”
The letter, addressed to Nelson, was led by Schiff and Padilla, both Democrats, and signed by Chu and Sen. Laphonza Butler, also a Democrat. Reps. Mike Garcia and Young Kim, both Republicans, also signed on.
“This talent represents a national asset that we cannot afford to lose, and if this uniquely talented workforce is lost to the private sector, it will be near impossible to reassemble,” the letter reads.
Rep. Tom McClintock said on Tuesday that he will oppose impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas — meaning Republicans have literally no room for error.
If Democrats have full attendance, House GOP leaders can’t afford to have any additional absences or lose a single other GOP vote.
McClintock (R-Calif.), in a lengthy letter to his colleagues, argued that the GOP articles against Mayorkas stretched how the founders would define an impeachable offense. And he warned that, if successful, Republicans were setting a precedent that Democrats might use against them in the future.
“Do Republicans really wish to establish an expansive view of impeachment that will surely be turned against conservatives on the Supreme Court or a future Republican president if Congress changes hands?” McClintock wrote.
He added that while a Cabinet official could be removed for committing a crime, that House Republicans were trying to cross a “bright line” by recommending he be removed from office for carrying out President Joe Biden’s policy decisions on the border. The articles of impeachment against Mayorkas accuse him of a breach of trust and refusing to comply with the law.
McClintock is the second GOP “no” vote in addition to Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.), who announced last week that he would oppose the historic step of impeaching Mayorkas. A Cabinet official hasn’t been impeached since 1876. McClintock’s opposition, though long expected, underscores the uncertainty heading into Tuesday’s scheduled vote.
Failing to impeach Mayorkas would mark an embarrassing political setback for House Republicans and Speaker Mike Johnson, who have faced intense pressure from their base to impeach Biden or a top official. A failure to impeach Mayorkas could further imperil hopes to eventually impeach the president as well.
There are still several lawmakers who are still publicly undecided, including Reps. David Joyce (R-Ohio), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) and Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.). And Majority Leader Steve Scalise’s expected absence as he undergoes treatment for blood cancer. If one more holdout votes against impeaching Mayorkas and Democrats have full attendance, the measure would fail.
Homeland Security Chair Mark Green (R-Tenn.), asked if he believed he had the votes on Tuesday, said: “We’ll see pretty soon.”
Senate Republicans are clear that they won’t vote to advance bipartisan border and foreign aid legislation on Wednesday. The only remaining question is whether that’s the end of discussion — or just a strategy to push for more time.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) is the latest senior GOP conference member to say he’d oppose advancing the legislation this week, arguing that lawmakers “need more time” but adding: “I’m pretty confident we can do better with a new president who actually will enforce the law.”
Some made clear they’d like more time for the Republican conference to consider the proposal, reached between Sens. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) and James Lankford (R-Okla.) and released over the weekend.
“My intention is to, at least on the motion to proceed, to vote where I think most our conference is going to be — which is no,” said Minority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.).
However, it’s far from clear even to Lankford whether GOP senators want to take more time on the legislation, which some have pushed for open amendments to, or fully stop work on it. If the bipartisan approach implodes fully amid the Republican resistance, Democratic leaders have not revealed whether or how they plan to win passage of aid to Ukraine and Israel.
Lankford told reporters that “if we’re actually delaying so we can actually get stuff done — and to be able to actually do a passage [vote] — I’m fine to be able to delay” but that “we need to do something.”
Asked jokingly by a reporter how he felt being run over by a metaphorical bus by GOP colleagues opposing his work, Lankford scoffed” “And backed up [over].”
Lead Democratic negotiator Murphy said his Republican colleagues were “not serious people” and slammed their treatment of Lankford’s efforts as “disgusting.”
“How can you trust any Republican right now? How would we know what to do next?” he asked. “They told us what to do. We follow their instructions to the letter, and then they pulled the rug out from under us in 24 hours.”
He added: “They didn’t even give [Lankford] the chance to argue the merits. These are not serious people.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer slammed the abrupt about-face from GOP lawmakers during a floor speech, giving no indication that he would abandon plans to vote on taking up the bill this week.
“This is the new Republican line on the border: it’s an emergency, but it can wait 12 months – or until the end of time,” he said. “What utter bunk.”
John Barrasso, the Senate’s No. 3 GOP leader, opposes the bipartisan border and Ukraine deal — the latest sign of the legislation’s grim prospects.
The Senate Republican conference chair said in a statement to POLITICO that unlike some of his colleagues who have process complaints, he opposes the underlying legislation. Barrasso said the deal “does not meet most Americans’ standard of securing our border now.”
“Joe Biden will never enforce any new law and refuses to use the tools he already has today to end this crisis. I cannot vote for this bill. Americans will turn to the upcoming election to end the border crisis,” Barrasso said.
Barrasso did defend Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) for negotiating the bill, but his opposition is just another stumbling block for the legislation, which is opposed by Speaker Mike Johnson and former President Donald Trump.
Barrasso, who has endorsed Trump in 2024, is widely seen as the most conservative member of top GOP leadership. He is also one of three Republicans in the mix to succeed Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. The other two potential successors, Senate Minority Whip John Thune and Sen. John Cornyn, are both undecided on the border legislation.
The Senate’s bipartisan border security deal – wobbling early on its way to the 60 votes it needs to advance later this week – picked up two big public supporters on Monday.
The first was Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who has long championed the border talks as a means to unlock stalled Ukraine aid that he’s made a top priority. While McConnell’s broader backing of the negotiations was no secret, his public call to pass the deal on the Senate floor marked a critical use of his political capital even as many of his own conservative members slammed the agreement.
“The national security legislation we’re preparing to take up will invest heavily in the capabilities and capacity America and our allies need to regain the upper hand over this emerging axis of authoritarians. Make no mistake: the gauntlet has been thrown. And America needs to pick it up,” McConnell said on Monday.
The second endorsement of the border deal came from the union that represents workers at the Border Patrol – the rare labor group that’s known for its ties to former President Donald Trump, who has urged Republicans to reject the Senate agreement.
Despite its Trump ties, the National Border Patrol Council endorsed the Senate deal in a Monday statement, saying that the bill would “codify into law authorities that U.S. Border Patrol agents never had in the past.”
The deal that’s formally named the Border Act, the product of months-long talks led by Sens. James Lankford (R-Okla.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), is expected to face a pivotal test vote on Wednesday.
“While not perfect, the Border Patrol Act of 2024 is a step in the right direction and is far better than the current status quo,” the statement read.
The bipartisan border security deal that’s headed for a pivotal first vote this week would pair $20 billion in emergency spending with policy changes that would amount to the most stringent immigration bill endorsed by a Democratic president in recent memory.
President Joe Biden is calling the bill the “toughest and fairest” in decades — and progressives are calling it a return to the Trump era.
The 370-page bill is already in jeopardy, with House Republican leaders vowing that they’ll never vote on the long-negotiated package. They are joined by conservative senators who argue that the $118 billion-plus legislation, which also sends tens of billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, has too many loopholes to effectively stop spiking migration at the southern border.
Progressives in both chambers of Congress are also turned off by the deal, lamenting that it amounts to an embrace of Donald Trump-style border policies and an undue shrinking of the asylum system designed to protect vulnerable immigrants.
Yet Biden is throwing his weight behind the plan, which he called “essential” to making the U.S.-Mexico border “more orderly, secure, fair, and humane.” It would deliver far more emergency cash than his October request for less than $14 billion in border funding as illegal border crossings from Mexico reached an all-time high in December, with nearly 250,000 arrests.
As members of both parties scrap over the substance of the bill, here’s a rundown of what’s really in it:
Detention
Immigration and Customs Enforcement would get almost $8 billion in emergency funding, rivaling the agency’s regular annual budget of about $9 billion. The emergency funding would include more than $3 billion for increased detention capacity.
Asylum
The plan would set a goal of speeding up the review of asylum claims, striving to let no cases last more than six months — often by allowing asylum officers to close out a claim rather than going through immigration courts. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services would get nearly $4 billion to help shoulder that new workload, including for hiring more than 4,300 asylum officers.
The measure would require asylum seekers to show greater proof to seek refuge in the U.S. and would ensure they are allowed a lawyer if they are facing rapid deportation. All unaccompanied children under 14 years old would also be granted lawyers during removal proceedings, covered by an infusion of $350 million for the Department of Health and Human Services.
Immigrant advocates quickly panned the proposal, with the ACLU arguing that it would “eviscerate” longstanding protections, and the National Immigrant Justice Center stressing that it would make asylum “largely un-obtainable for those who are permitted to request it at ports of entry.”
‘Border shutdown’
The bill would force the Department of Homeland Security to shutter the border if daily illegal crossings top 5,000 migrants on average or 8,500 in a single day. Unaccompanied minors from countries other than Mexico and Canada wouldn’t count toward that total.
The administration could only reopen the border if encounters of illegal crossings drop to 75 percent of the number that initially triggered the closure.
DHS would also have the power to shut down the border if crossings average more than 4,000 a day for a week, and Biden has signaled he would aggressively use that authority.
During a “border shutdown,” many people trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border would be quickly deported. But exceptions would be made for unaccompanied minors and people who meet the requirements of the United Nations Convention Against Torture rules.
Ports of entry
DHS would still consider asylum requests from people crossing at legal ports of entry during those periods of “border shutdown” — just not in between those ports. Officials would have to process at least 1,400 asylum requests per day under those terms.
Local support
$1.4 billion would be disbursed to help states and local governments handle the influx of immigrants. In New York alone, Gov. Kathy Hochul earlier this month proposed spending $2.4 billion to provide services to migrants in her annual budget.
Border wall
The bill would force the Biden administration to use money already laid out for border barriers on the kind of steel fencing that Trump boasted during his tenure. That “bollard”-style border wall is supposed to be 18 to 30 feet high, with “anti-dig” and “anti-climb” features.
Afghan nationals
Permanent residency would be offered to Afghans who fled their home country and received special immigrant visas following the withdrawal of U.S. forces in 2021. It would also allow Afghans who are considered U.S. allies to be deemed refugees and entitled to special State Department protections or immediate removal from Afghanistan.
Special immigrant status would also be offered to Afghans who are an immediate relative of a U.S. military member or veteran. Up to 2,500 special immigrant visas would be offered a year, for a total of up to 10,000.
Visas
The deal would free up 250,000 new visas over half a decade for people seeking to work in the U.S. or to join family members. It would offer work authorization to the children and spouses of people who have H-1B visas for specialized jobs that often require a bachelor’s degree, like tech and engineering work.
Immigrants awaiting visas would also be eligible for work if they have a U.S. citizen spouse or fiancé, or if their parent is the spouse or fiancé of a U.S. citizen.
Countering fentanyl
Folded into the border security deal is legislation aimed at beefing up anti-money laundering policies and sanctions, known as the Fend Off Fentanyl Act.
The Drug Enforcement Administration would receive more than $23 million to disrupt and disband Mexican cartels trafficking fentanyl across the southern border. And the State Department and USAID would see about $25 million for programs aimed at curbing the flow of the drug into the U.S.
‘Documented Dreamers’
Advocates and some Democrats quickly slammed the lack of relief or pathways to citizenship for so-called Dreamers, or undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children. There’s also no new citizenship path for farm workers or other long-time residents who work in essential jobs.
The legislation does, however, aim to provide a pathway to citizenship for “Documented Dreamers,” or children who accompanied their parents on a work visa and who could potentially lose their place in line for a green card at age 21.
Work permits
Immigrants who apply for asylum could be eligible to work in the U.S. while they wait.
Border Patrol
Customs and Border Protection would get nearly $7 billion in emergency funding, a massive infusion above its current yearly budget of about $21 billion. That extra funding would include $723 million would cover increased hiring of Border Patrol agents and overtime pay.
The bill would also give DHS more flexibility in hiring Border Patrol agents and create yearly training requirements for non-lethal force, protecting due process and preserving civil and human rights.
Anthony Adragna contributed to this report.
The Senate’s bipartisan border and foreign aid deal is already close to failure, with Republicans preparing to block debate on the bill this week — and potentially for longer than that.
The President Joe Biden-backed agreement is getting pummeled from the left and right, but it’s internal GOP angst that’s fueling the likelihood of a filibuster during an expected test vote on Wednesday. After Senate Republicans met for 90 minutes on Monday night to discuss the border deal that a trio of senators forged over the past four months, few of them emerged willing to say they would vote to advance the $118 billion package.
Several members of GOP leadership came out against the legislation in the past 24 hours, further boxing in Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. The Kentucky Republican, who supports the agreement linking border policy changes with aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, called Monday’s meeting an “interesting discussion.”
Inside the room, McConnell told Republicans that if they didn’t like the direction that the bill is going, they should vote against moving forward this week, according to two people briefed on the meeting who were granted anonymity to speak candidly.
According to two attendees, McConnell did not forcefully whip for or against the bill. He instead discussed the specific policies and politics of the legislation, which is opposed by Speaker Mike Johnson and former President Donald Trump.
Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), who struck the deal, even suggested he might vote against moving forward if his colleagues weren’t ready to move.“That’s not voting against the bill,” Lankford said of voting to filibuster the bill from coming to the floor. “So that’s not the final passage. That’s the beginning point.”
It’s a stunning turnabout from just a few months ago, when Republicans demanded border security policy changes to pair with $60 billion in Ukraine aid requested by Biden. Now Republican support for the legislation is vanishingly hard to find, with just a handful of GOP senators in support. Even moderate Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said she was unsure if she would vote to advance the bill.
Lankford added that he’s not sure how much time members will actually want to evaluate the proposal — if that timeline goes beyond Wednesday. Many Senate Republicans want an open amendment process that could drag out debate indefinitely, if leadership allows it.
Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), another member of leadership, said “yes” the vote would fail on Wednesday. And Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.), who worked closely with negotiators, said there’s “very real concern” that there isn’t enough time to fully discuss it by Wednesday’s scheduled vote, deeming it “too early” for most Senate Republicans.
Several Democrats have warned they would defect as well.
“I don’t see this moving forward. Even before the speaker spoke [against it], I couldn’t see the votes,” said Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), who opposes the legislation and is on the leadership team. “The next step is to look at how we fund Israel.”
After weeks of stops and starts, Lankford, Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) and Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) unveiled the legislation on Sunday night, hoping that the legislative text would help beat back conservative attacks on the legislation.
That hasn’t happened, much to the frustration of Lankford’s allies. Republicans now have a fusillade of complaints about the bill, ranging from how its border shutdown authority would work to how long they have to consider it.
“I mean, three minutes after the text was released, people were saying it’s a crap bill,” said Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.). “There’s been people saying that [Lankford] is immoral. If that guy’s immoral, I’m literally swimming in flames.”
There were many absences during Monday’s meeting, so Republicans will hold another party huddle on Tuesday afternoon to further hash out their position. Many now want guarantees of amendment votes from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who set the Wednesday vote in motion on Monday evening.
Those process concerns cloak the real reasons behind many Republicans’ resistance to moving forward: Some don’t want to fund Ukraine, some don’t see the border provisions as strict enough and others don’t want to give Biden a policy win that helps shore up his political standing on the immigration issue.
Still others are unsure about advancing a bill the House GOP says it won’t even take up.
“Hanging over this bill like a brooding omnipresence in the sky is the position of Majority Leader Scalise and Speaker Johnson that the bill will never even be considered by the House. And that’s a factor that’s got to be taken into consideration,” said an undecided Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.).
Senate negotiators have two days to get to 60 votes on their $118 billion-plus proposal to pair major immigration policy changes with aid to Ukraine and Israel.
So far, they’re not having a lot of luck.
There are already 24 senators who stand as likely or outright nos on the bill, according to a POLITICO survey of all 100 senators. That’s past the halfway mark to a filibuster, leaving the deal dangerously close to failing during an expected Wednesday test vote.
Those no votes include three Democratic caucus members: Bob Menendez (N.J.); Alex Padilla (Calif.); and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who does not support unconditional aid to Israel.
Plus 21 Republican nos or likely nos: Marsha Blackburn (Tenn.), Mike Braun (Ind.), Katie Britt (Ala.), Ted Budd (N.C.), Tom Cotton (Ark.), Ted Cruz (Texas), Steve Daines (Mont.), Deb Fischer (Neb.), Bill Hagerty (Tenn.), Josh Hawley (Mo.), Ron Johnson (Wisc.), Mike Lee (Utah), Roger Marshall (Kan.), Rand Paul (Ky.), Marco Rubio (Fla.), Mike Rounds (S.D.), Eric Schmitt (Mo.), Tim Scott (S.C.), Rick Scott (Fla.), Tommy Tuberville (Ala.) and J.D. Vance (Ohio).
Not to mention the handful of Republicans who sound on the fence, like Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). He said he’s “open-minded on steps we can take to make the bill stronger.” He forecasted that unless amendments are offered, the bill would collapse.
But as Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) warned on Monday, an open amendment process could turn into a free-for-all by allowing critical conservatives to delay a final vote indefinitely.
“I don’t want this to turn into a filibuster, which it easily could,” Durbin told reporters.” That’s the problem. And I think Senator McConnell knows it.”
Several members of GOP leadership, like Minority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.) and Sens. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), said they are still reviewing the deal’s text. Other Republicans seem to be weighing their colleagues’ reactions before making a call.
“It will take days and weeks, not minutes and hours, to evaluate it. If we can’t get half of the conference, we shouldn’t move forward,” Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) said in a statement.
Republicans could get a better sense of where their side stands during a closed-door conference meeting later on Monday. Meanwhile, plenty of Democrats still have not weighed in on the deal, which adds to the uncertainty given the progressive pushback that the border accord has long faced.
Some liberal senators, like Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.), have stayed mum on their stance. Warren’s spokesperson said that she is still reviewing the details of the legislation.
Padilla, who’s long aired worries that the border negotiations were moving too far to the right for his taste, said “there’s a lot of calls and meetings that are happening.” He predicted that amendments wouldn’t solidify Democratic support either.
“I don’t see Republicans going for amendments that would make the package better,” he said.
Asked whether any of the no votes are flippable, Lankford admitted that he doesn’t know.
“Many of my colleagues said they needed a week or two or three weeks to be able to go through it to make a decision – and then they made decisions within minutes or hours,” he said.
If there’s a Plan B for foreign aid in case the border security package fails, its negotiators haven’t said yet. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has teed up a key test vote on the measure for Wednesday.
Asked about a backup plan for Ukraine aid, Durbin replied that “beating Putin is plan A, B and C.”
The Senate is currently slated to leave town at the end of this week for a two-week recess. When they come back, they’ll be facing a government funding deadline within days. And in case you were wondering, Congress has taken no floor votes on individual government spending bills since it last punted its shutdown deadlines.
Former President Donald Trump blasted the Senate’s bipartisan border bill Monday morning, calling the legislation, which would tighten asylum standards and automatically shut down the southern border to illegal crossings if encounters reached a certain daily threshold, a “great gift to the Democrats, and a Death Wish for The Republican Party.”
“Only a fool, or a Radical Left Democrat, would vote for this horrendous Border Bill, which only gives Shutdown Authority after 5000 Encounters a day, when we already have the right to CLOSE THE BORDER NOW, which must be done,” Trump posted on Truth Social. Some Trump surrogates have made similar arguments in recent weeks as details about the agreement began to emerge.
Senators released a finalized deal on stricter border and immigration policies on Sunday night, which is headed toward an uncertain floor vote later this week.
Trump previously pledged to fight the bill “all the way.”
“As the leader of our party, there is zero chance I will support this horrible, open borders betrayal of America. It’s not going to happen, and I’ll fight it all the way,” Trump said last month during a campaign event in Nevada. And he lavished praise on House Speaker Mike Johnson, who declared the bill “dead on arrival,” in the House.
Trump and his allies have been feverishly working to scuttle the bill, which his likely 2024 presidential opponent, President Joe Biden, desperately wants to see pass.
Biden on Sunday lauded the bill, which he said in a statement Sunday night would make the border more secure and the asylum process more fair, while delivering desperately needed aid to U.S. allies around the world, including Ukraine and Israel.
“Now, House Republicans have to decide. Do they want to solve the problem? Or do they want to keep playing politics with the border? I’ve made my decision. I’m ready to solve the problem. I’m ready to secure the border,” Biden said.