For years, immigration activists have signaled they’re willing to accept a compromise to unlock action on Capitol Hill: Republicans get tougher border policies and Democrats get progressive immigration measures — a path to citizenship for Dreamers, at the very least.

That grand bargain is now in peril, thanks to a furious push to deliver tens of billions of dollars of aid to Ukraine, and advocates and lawmakers are sounding alarms.

In a statement Wednesday, a group of 11 Democratic senators led by California’s Alex Padilla slammed the potential for “harmful changes to our asylum system that will potentially deny lifesaving humanitarian protection for vulnerable people, including children, and fail to deliver any meaningful improvement to the situation at the border.”

The warning is aimed at a gang of six senators — three Republicans, three Democrats — who are trying to unlock President Joe Biden’s $106 billion supplemental funding request for aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.

Tougher border security is the GOP’s price for Ukraine aid, which represents a change to a traditional immigration-policy equation: Republicans get border security, yes, but Democrats get aid to Ukraine, not accommodations for undocumented immigrants or other concessions. The lead Democratic negotiator, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), tried to add in citizenship for Dreamers early on in the talks, and Republicans shot it down.

For immigration reform advocates, it means their longtime priorities have been traded away and replaced with Biden’s foreign aid priorities. And they are starting to step up pressure on Senate Democrats and the White House.

“These proposals do nothing to secure our border or live up to the will of the American electorate to see both humane, orderly processes at the border and paths to legal status for long-settled immigrants in the U.S.,” said Immigration Hub’s Kerri Talbot in a statement Tuesday.

Talbot worked for Senate Democratic leaders in 2013, the last time Congress tried to pass comprehensive immigration reform, and as executive director of Immigration Hub, she now advises progressive immigration organizations on strategy. Her advice is to vote no: “No Democrat should accept these ransom demands that would harm immigrants.”

The negotiations are now centered around three big issues:

Asylum standards: When migrants apply for asylum, they are screened to determine whether they have “credible fear” they will be persecuted or tortured if they’re returned home. Republicans want a higher standard, which would result in more migrants being removed.

Safe third countries: There are discussions about expanding the number of countries where asylum seekers would be required to seek protection first if they pass through on the way to the U.S. border. Canada, for instance, is designated as a “safe third country,” while Mexico isn’t.

Parole authority: Presidents have the authority to temporarily admit people to the U.S. for humanitarian or other reasons. For instance, Biden has used these “parole” powers  to allow in thousands of people from Afghanistan, Ukraine, Venezuela, Cuba and elsewhere; Republicans want to vastly curtail this authority. 

In terms of the politics of these three issues, the Democrats involved in the talks seem resigned to accepting a revised asylum threshold, deeply hostile to meddling with parole authority and somewhere in the middle on safe third countries.
The senators who spoke out Wednesday said any substantive changes should be paired with concessions on immigration policies, not on Ukraine funding.

“Any proposal considering permanent changes to our asylum and immigration system needs to include a clear path to legalization for long-standing undocumented immigrants,” the senators said in a statement, which was co-signed by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the No. 2 party leader and a longtime advocate for Dreamers.

The left has other gripes about the process: (1) that Biden is so hungry for an immigration deal that he is willing to give away too much, and (2) that the Senate negotiators are not close to the activists.

Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) used to be the go-to Democrat on the issue, but he’s been sidelined by corruption allegations. (He did sign the Padilla-led statement.)

Unlike the Gang of Eight that negotiated a big Senate immigration bill in 2013, this current group of six Senate negotiators doesn’t include any Latinos. “It’s the Gang of White,” one activist groaned.

The right, meanwhile, is hardly united itself on the emerging Senate deal. House Republicans are still pushing H.R. 2, a more wide-ranging and restrictive bill that Democrats would never accept. In a sign of how the base will react to any potential deal, Heritage Action for America came out against the Senate talks yesterday and demanded that Republicans commit to H.R. 2 instead.

House Speaker Mike Johnson will be attending the Senate GOP lunch Wednesday, where the border talks are sure to come up, giving an indication of how close or far apart House and Senate Republicans are.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has tried to push the talks along by setting a deadline of next week for a vote on the Biden aid package. But if it falls apart, all eyes will be on Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who both supports aid to Ukraine and is pushing hard to tie the aid to border security.

There is no obvious Plan B floating around, so Biden and McConnell, for very different reasons, are highly incentivized to figure this one out — and they are being cheered on by in-cycle Senate Democrats, who are starting to see the political upside of a deal: Sens. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) all told POLITICO yesterday they were open to asylum policy changes.

“I am one that thinks it doesn’t hurt,” Tester said.

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About two weeks after Hamas attacked Israel, hundreds of former campaign aides to Bernie Sanders implored him in an open letter to back a cease-fire. He has yet to do so.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-Mass.) former aides penned their own letter pressing her on a cease-fire, and protestors gathered outside her home demanding one. She hasn’t gone that far.

Former aides to Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) delivered a similar plea for him to back a cease-fire — and he didn’t budge from staunch support of Israel. Instead, Fetterman told POLITICO that pro-Palestinian demonstrators “should be protesting Hamas, and they should be demanding that the hostages are back home.”

The flurry of pro-Palestinian protests staged by progressive activists across the country and in the nation’s capital may have nudged a handful of new lawmakers to push for a cease-fire: At least three Democratic senators are openly calling for one, and 18 House Democrats have backed a cease-fire resolution. Other party lawmakers have called for a humanitarian cease-fire without signing onto that proposal.

But almost two months since war began between Israel and Hamas, the protestors’ tactics have not generated a groundswell of Democratic support for a plan to end the hostilities. They’ve made more progress toward achieving a far different goal: driving a wedge within the Democratic Party.

Its biggest liberal luminaries, while they haven’t joined the left flank of the House in pushing for a cease-fire, are still pressing for checks on Israel’s military offensive amid concerns about the humanitarian toll on Palestinians. Sanders has pushed for conditions on U.S. aid to Israel, as has Warren — and both have joined many other Democrats in backing the sort of humanitarian pause that’s now in effect in Gaza.

As the pressure campaign for a permanent cease-fire ramped up, however, some protestors stepped up their tactics to gather outside of the homes and offices of lawmakers like Warren, with some facilities vandalized. Cease-fire backers rallied inside a House office building and blocked an exit at the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters, leading to a violent clash with Capitol Police.

Hill Democrats, staring down an influential young bloc of their base voters infuriated by the party’s handling of the war, have no clear consensus on how to respond. Sanders summed up the quandary in a Nov. 16 statement, saying that “I am not quite sure how you negotiate a ceasefire with a terrorist organization that is dedicated to perpetual war.”

The protests outside of members’ homes have struck a real nerve among party leaders, given that personal threats against lawmakers reached all-time highs in recent years.

“I’ve always considered a politician or a member of Congress’ residence to be out of bounds,” said Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), who has called for a cease-fire. “I don’t think it wins any points.”

For Jewish lawmakers, the protests’ escalating tactics are a more serious worry. Rep. Greg Landsman (D-Ohio), whose district office was recently the target of attempted vandalism, cited the “history of really horrible, untrue rhetoric and language being used against Jews.”

“The Jewish members have gotten a lot of it, and it is concerning because of what it could turn into,” he said. “There’s a big, long history of this happening, and it doesn’t really end well for the Jewish community.”

Not ‘as artfully as it could have been’

Part of the difficulty faced by some Democratic lawmakers targeted by pro-cease-fire activism stems from the wording of the House’s resolution on the topic, led by Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.). It urges “the Biden administration to immediately call for and facilitate de-escalation and a ceasefire to urgently end the current violence,” adding that the administration should “promptly send and facilitate the entry of humanitarian assistance into Gaza.”

Rep. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.) didn’t sign on because the resolution wasn’t “written as artfully as it could have been.”

A “meaningful cease-fire,” she said, “it has to be inclusive of the whole region. You can’t negotiate with a terrorist group for a cease-fire.”

Instead, like many fellow Democrats, McCollum called for a humanitarian, regional cease-fire. She said that she still faced recent protests at her office.

Demonstrations at lawmakers’ homes could go too far, McCollum added, “especially if you have young kids or people in the neighborhood get upset.”

The cease-fire push is hardly the first example of progressive activists pushing for the most left-leaning response, only to watch top Hill Democrats triangulate by taking a less liberal approach. The progressive push for a “public option” as part of Obamacare, for example, lived on in the form of Sanders’ “Medicare for All” plan long after the health care law passed without the choice of a government-run plan.

And there’s reason for the left to see progress in the recent extension of the humanitarian pause in fighting, which has brought the return of multiple hostages and prisoners on both sides. Senior congressional Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, have hailed the pause.

Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.), who publicly backed a cease-fire on Tuesday, said colleagues are likely to grow more sympathetic to the protesters’ cause as civilian casualties grow in Gaza.

“There’s a lot of protests that are reflecting people’s real concerns about how many civilians have been killed in Gaza,” Welch said, adding that “it’s all part of the process.”

Other Democrats targeted by recent protests indicated that activists should speak freely, even if it wouldn’t change their positions on a cease-fire.

“I am happy to live in a democracy where everybody gets a chance to air their views,” Warren said.

Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), whose home saw a cease-fire protest over the weekend, said that “I fully support the ability for people to protest.”

Ripples back home

Meanwhile, the divisions in the party over the war have rattled Democrats at home, too.

In New York City, for example, the war is threatening to upend the goodwill that Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) has built up with local progressives. Goldman won a close race in his district spanning Lower Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn last year, prevailing over more liberal candidates in a crowded field.

He’s worked hard to build relationships with his critics from the primary. But now he’s facing blowback from local advocates for his positions on Israel and voting to censure Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), a lead backer of the cease-fire resolution and the only Palestinian American in Congress.

“Calling for a cease-fire is the bare minimum and an essential step for Goldman to do if he hopes to rebuild trust with and truly represent his district. We urge him to do this,” said Alicia Singham Goodwin, political director of Jews for Racial and Economic Justice.

Goldman said in a Monday statement that “any call for ceasefire that does not address the permanent and unacceptable threat posed by Hamas in the region is in fact a call for unilateral disarmament by Israel. A resolution that would allow for the end of hostilities must not only include the release of all illegally-abducted Israeli hostages but also the full military and political surrender by Hamas and its removal from Gaza.”

There’s also a nascent effort to primary Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) by progressives who say he’s too focused on Israel and too unequivocal in his support for its government — though they don’t have a candidate yet.

California’s progressive movement to demand a cease-fire also seems to have only more bitterly divided Democrats. That’s especially true after pro-Palestinian groups led a raucous, 1,000-person demonstration at the state party convention in Sacramento this month.

State party chief Rusty Hicks condemned the protesters, whom he said inflicted “minor injuries” on a few security guards. The disruption led the party to cancel one night of caucus meetings, and Hicks vowed that party delegates who participated will be “held accountable.”

The protesters had sought to pressure party leaders to back a cease-fire, eyeing Senate candidates Reps. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Katie Porter (D-Calif.). But the party ended its convention with adopting a stance on the topic, and the convention incident hardened the schism.

Notably, protesters are also calling for a restrictions on military aid to Israel that go beyond the conditions Sanders and other progressive lawmakers are backing. Beth Miller, the political director of Jewish Voice for Peace Action, said that in addition to a permanent cease-fire, her group is asking lawmakers to “be objecting to and voting no on sending any more weapons or military funding to the Israeli government right now.“

The notion of any conditions on aid has so far gained little traction outside the progressive left, though some Democratic appropriators had tried to attach restrictions to the Biden administration’s original massive security spending ask.

Fetterman said it’s a hard pass for him, reiterating pro-Israel positions that have irked some of his liberal allies.

“No,” he said when asked about the proposal for conditions. “None.”

Jeff Coltin and Dustin Gardiner contributed to this report.

A growing number of Senate Democrats appear open to making it harder for migrants to seek asylum in order to secure Republican support for aiding Ukraine and Israel.

They are motivated not just by concern for America’s embattled allies. They also believe changes are needed to help a migration crisis that is growing more dire and to potentially dull the political sting of border politics in battleground states before the 2024 elections.

“Look, I think the border needs some attention. I am one that thinks it doesn’t hurt,” said Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), one of the Senate’s most vulnerable Democrats in next year’s midterm election.

Tester said he’s eager to see if a bipartisan group of negotiators can come up with an agreement on a policy issue as elusive as immigration. While he refused to commit to supporting a deal until he sees its details, he didn’t rule out backing stronger border requirements. And he’s not alone.

“I am certainly okay with [border policy] being a part of a national security supplemental,” said Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), another Democrat facing reelection next year. On changes to asylum policy, she said: “I would like to see us make some bipartisan progress, which has eluded us for years. The system’s broken.”

Efforts to rewrite the nation’s immigration laws have long been marked by failure, including a high-profile crater five years ago on border security and legalization for those protected under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. And while there is movement among some Senate Democrats toward satisfying the key GOP demand that any aid for Ukraine and Israel be married with stricter border policies, others in the party are resistant.

Democrats probably wouldn’t even be considering this had Republicans not drawn a red line earlier this fall on linking the border with Ukraine. And so far, talks among Democrats and Republicans have centered around stricter asylum standards, with several Democrats saying they could support raising the bar for migrants to successfully claim asylum in the United States.

But the chief negotiators separately indicated Tuesday they’re not yet close to an agreement. The White House and Democrats are resisting changes to the humanitarian parole system, including forcing migrants to remain in Mexico or other countries while they await entry into the United States, according to a person briefed on the talks. And Republicans won’t allow Democrats’ priorities on undocumented immigrants known as “Dreamers” to be part of the discussions.

The Biden administration — which has requested nearly $106 billion in funding for Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and the border— has maintained a hands-off approach to the bipartisan Senate negotiations. But officials have conveyed support for the talks. There is a broader recognition that the party’s support could wedge Democrats between immigration reform activists and independent voters.

Ultimately, Republicans say President Joe Biden will have to jump in to finalize a negotiation, particularly if the six-member Senate gang currently engaged in talks stalls out.

“I don’t mean to deprecate the people who are talking. But ultimately this is going to be a deal that’s going to be made between President Biden, Senate Majority Leader [Chuck] Schumer, Speaker [Mike] Johnson and Leader [Mitch] McConnell,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas).

Democrats are reluctant to tighten up the parole system because the Biden administration has used the program’s executive flexibility to admit migrants from Afghanistan, Ukraine, Venezuela, Cuba and other countries. And more broadly, progressives and immigrant rights groups argue Democrats are already giving into Republican demands without making any progress on their own immigration priorities, such as protecting DACA recipients or others brought into the country as children without documentation.

“Now is the moment for Democrats to stand up and make clear which priorities for immigrant communities are they fighting for,” said Andrea Flores, vice president for immigration policy and campaigns, FWD.us. “Or are they simply going to accept radically damaging changes?”

Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) said he’s working to get a pathway to citizenship added to the negotiation, although Republicans have said that’s a non-starter. Still, he refused to rule out supporting changes to the asylum standard. “The devil is in the details,” he said.

Like other vulnerable Democrats in cycle next year, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) also said he was open to including border security policies if that’s what it takes to unlock money for Ukraine and to combat the fentanyl epidemic.

But progressives may be less open to border restrictions.

The politics, said Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), “will be good for some and not for others.”

So far, there’s not a ton for the left to be happy about. And the GOP rejection of Democrats’ immigration priorities and insistence that Democrats go beyond just raising asylum standards has some Democrats’ gloomy on the prospects.

“I certainly fear that Republicans are having a hard time taking yes for an answer. But we’ll continue to work,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), the Democrats’ chief negotiator.

Still, the narrow 51-member Democratic majority can’t make a move without at least nine Republicans given the Senate’s 60-vote requirement. Many Senate Republicans support more funding for Ukraine but they seem intent on using their leverage, in part in a bid to create a bill that Speaker Johnson might take up in the House.

McConnell, an old friend of Biden’s, said he called the president last week “to make sure he understood that there wouldn’t be a bill without a credible effort” to restrict the flow of migrants to the southern border.

But that position boxes Democrats in: To get Ukraine aid, they must forge an agreement on the extremely touchy issue of immigration.

“There are some people who have said that there is no progress that can be made on Ukraine without an agreement on the border,” said Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), one of the six negotiators.

Asked about raising the asylum standard, Schumer declined to answer directly and simply said “we need a bipartisan bill.” He plans to force a vote as soon as next week on the Biden administration’s entire $106 billion supplemental spending request, which Republicans say they will block without the inclusion of tough new border policy restrictions.

“We probably have to do that to demonstrate to Democrats who may be wondering about the resolve among Republicans on this issue,” said Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.).

Should a vote fail, it would further prolong the amount of time since Congress last approved Ukraine aid late last year. And without a government funding deadline until January, the Senate will have to put together a holiday surprise pretty quickly to signal to Kyiv that more aid from the U.S. is coming.

Myah Ward and Anthony Adragna contributed to this report.