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Among the proposed reforms, the Department of Homeland Security would be given new authority to block migrants from crossing the border if the number of crossings rises above 5,000 on average per day in a given week, or 8,500 in a single day.
It also included provisions to raise standards for screening asylum applications and implement expedited deportation of ineligible people.
Supporters — including Democrats and Republicans in Congress — said it would also have given authorities greater latitude to evaluate cases at the border rather than sending them to the already overburdened immigration court system.
This is a particularly important step given the backlog to the point where 3 million cases remain pending, and many migrants must wait years to get a hearing, said Muzaffar Chishti, a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute.
He added: “This is the height of cynicism, that there are the same members of Congress who are busy saying that we have a crisis at the border, and are now gradually trying to prevent action that could help solve it.”
Chishti said the bill was the first time since 2013 that Democrats and Republicans agreed on major reforms to address America's broken immigration system.
The figures show that authorities encountered more than 3.2 million people crossing the border in the year ending September 30 – far more than the 1.9 million recorded in 2021, Biden's first year in office.
Thwarting the bill also jeopardizes aid to Israel and Ukraine at a critical time, along with funds needed to protect the Indo-Pacific region from the threat of China.
In an effort to save foreign aid, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer plans to force a procedural vote on an emergency package that would contain foreign aid funding but exclude border components.
Republicans said they could not pass through Ukraine without borders. Now they say they cannot pass through the Ukraine border. “Today, I give them a choice,” Schumer said on the Senate floor before torpedoing the border deal. “I urge Republicans to accept yes for an answer.”
Donald Trump speaks at the US-Mexico border wall in June 2021.credit: the screen
Some Senate Republicans, who initially supported the border bill, ended up voting against it after pro-Trump Republicans in the House declared it “dead on arrival.”
Senate Minority Leader McConnell had previously supported moving forward with the bill, but voted “no” after realizing “we don’t have a real chance here to pass a law.”
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In a nod to the poignant policy, James Lankford, the GOP's lead negotiator for the bill, told the House he was threatened by a “popular commentator” who told him: “If you try to move a bill that solves the border crisis during this time” of a presidential year, I will do everything I can. “To destroy you.”
Earlier, Biden said that Democrats will now seek to blame Trump for the border crisis, which is one of the biggest political problems facing the president.
“If the bill fails — I want to be absolutely clear about something — the American people will know why it failed,” he told reporters at the White House this week.
“Voters will know that the moment we secure the border and fund these other programs, Trump and the MAGA Republicans said ‘no’ because they are afraid of Donald Trump.”
