Senate Democrats face immigration quagmire

Senate Democrats are staring down a box canyon as they head into a two-week break with no sign of how to break an entrenched stalemate on $10 billion in coronavirus aid. 

What senators were hoping would be quick passage after a bipartisan group announced that they had clinched a deal has gotten bogged down by a political landmine, as Republicans are using the aid as an avenue for litigating the Biden administration’s recently announced decision to end a Trump-era immigration policy. 

Looming over all of it is 2022 politics, with Republicans homing in on immigration and the border as a top issue as they look to take back the House and Senate in the November midterm elections. 

Sen. Dick Durbin (Ill.), the No. 2 Senate Democrat and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee , acknowledged that “it’s a tough issue” and that Republicans would use it against their members. 

“Trust me, this is one of the pillars of their reelection campaign — immigration — and the numbers appearing at our border are a real challenge and I’m sure they’re going to make an issue of it,” Durbin said. 

Democrats are vowing to try to push forward with the coronavirus relief funding, even as the Senate appears poised to leave town on Thursday after confirming Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson as the first Black female Supreme Court justice. 

Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) accused Republicans of trying to “play politics and inject extraneous issues” into the coronavirus relief. Democrats also warn that Republicans could find themselves on the wrong side of the coronavirus funding if cases increase while Congress is out of town.

“We are going to keep working to make sure that Congress sends COVID funding to the president’s desk,” he said.

But the current standoff has Democrats backed up between a rock and a hard place: Giving Republicans what they want — a vote to extend Title 42, the Trump-era policy that allows for the rapid expulsion of migrants at the border and blocks them from seeking asylum — would spotlight divisions within their own ranks and potentially tank the coronavirus deal in the House. 

But not giving them a vote has thrown into limbo coronavirus funds that Democrats and Biden view as urgent, with no clear path out of the stalemate. 

Biden faced pressure for months from immigration advocates and Democratic allies to end the Trump-era policy that they viewed as illegal and cruel to those fleeing persecution and danger. The order from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lifts Title 42 on May 23. 

But the decision sparked pushback from several Senate Democrats, who argued that the administration didn’t have a plan in place to offset any potential increases in migrants along the border. 

Republicans believe they could galvanize on those divisions and are demanding a vote to effectively help keep Title 42 in place as long as there is a public health emergency in exchange for moving the coronavirus deal. 

“Democrats don’t want to have a vote on Title 42. … We can win it. They’ve got a number of Democrats that are for it,” said Sen. John Thune (S.D.), the No. 2 Senate Republican. 

Republicans are waiting for a ruling from the parliamentarian but believe that their amendment would qualify for a simple majority vote — if Democrats would allow for it to happen. 

In a 50-50 Senate, that means that they would only need to pick up one Democratic senator to get their proposal attached to the coronavirus deal. 

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), one of several Democratic senators who have been critical of the administration’s decision, said that he would support a Title 42 amendment but also indicated that Republicans shouldn’t hold up COVID-19 aid. 

“We should not get rid of 42. I’ve always said that. … But still yet, you just don’t hold up the package that’s needed to protect Americans too, so I hope they can work through that,” Manchin said. 

The pushback from centrist Democrats has been answered by warnings from immigration activists. 

Vanessa Cárdenas, the deputy director of America’s Voice, said the choice for Democrats on a Title 42 vote was if they are going to “stand with [Trump White House adviser] Stephen Miller and Senate Republicans who want to end asylum as we know it, or stand for an America that can protect both its borders and its tradition as a welcoming nation?”

“Democrats have a choice. They can cower before an ugly rightwing disinformation campaign that falsely asserts America has ‘open borders’ designed to ‘replace’ Americans, or they can stand for the proposition that America can govern our borders with both order and justice,” Cárdenas said.

Democratic senators say they had expected that the $10 billion deal would be able to pass without any amendments because it was negotiated amongst a bipartisan group. 

But there’s widespread unity within the Senate Republican Conference to stick behind the demand to get amendment votes on Title 42. Republicans also note that it was House Democrats who stripped a larger coronavirus deal for $15 billion out of a sweeping government funding bill. 

“The mistake … was deciding and announcing that the administration intended to repeal Title 42,” said Sen. Susan Collins (Maine), one of the most moderate Senate Republicans.

“I think there’s widespread, bipartisan support for retaining Title 42, and it’s important to get a vote on it,” Collins added. 

Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), who is helping draft the Title 42 proposal, also said that he wouldn’t accept a stand-alone vote on his proposal, noting that it would only hit a buzzsaw in the House. 

“A stand-alone vote in the Senate is not going to help us because then it’s not going to move in the House,” Lankford said, adding that he wouldn’t take the offer even if Democrats made it. 

It’s not clear what, if anything, could change over the two-week break. 

“If this is an after the recess exercise, maybe there will have been a change in people’s views,” Thune said, but he stressed that Republicans had been telegraphing that they were going to demand a Title 42 amendment. 

Pressed if there were steps the administration could take on the border over the break to unstick the coronavirus funds, Thune added: “It would take leadership from the White House.” 

GOP negotiators are making it clear that they are willing to let the coronavirus agreement unravel completely unless Democrats agree to give them amendment votes. 

“If he does not want the bill to go forward or does not want any amendments … it will just be stalled into the oblivion, which often happens in this building,” said Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah). “If they don’t allow any amendments, there won’t be a bill.”