After weeks of negotiations, political dysfunction – particularly in the House Republican Caucus – tanked the bipartisan border security bill, which also would have funded much-needed aid to Israel and Ukraine.
However, despite this calamitous display of party politics, the government’s work to fix the crisis on our Southern border, as well as help our allies, cannot – and must not – be finished.
As a matter of policy, the border security bill was a good deal for the country as a whole, Democrats and Republicans alike, California as a border state, as well as Israel and Ukraine, particularly the latter, which is experiencing dire shortages of ammunition due to stalled U.S. aid.
Indeed, the proposed bill addressed crucial national security concerns such as the flooding in of foreign nationals from countries like China and Venezuela, and would have also cracked down on drug trafficking, including the alarming surge of fentanyl related deaths in the United States, one of the biggest consequences of our porous border.
In terms of immigration policy itself, the bill would have put a cap on the number of border crossings per day and installed three ‘automatic triggers’ to shut down the border: If 5,000 migrants were caught within the course of a week, or 8,500 in a single day, as well as giving the President power to close the border if there were an average of 4,000 migrant encounters per day over a seven day period.
The legislation also would have tightened the nation’s asylum system, removing the courts from the migrant appeals process, and putting those decisions in the hands of a more conservative internal review board, a sure-fire win for Republicans.
Of course, Republicans did not get everything they wanted. The bill took a long time to get to the House, and during that time, the border problem worsened. On top of that, the proposed bill does not automatically shut the border, nor does it go as far as the GOP may like, in terms of restricting immigration, and while they may have a point, politics is the art of the possible, and this bipartisan bill should be promoted for what it does do, not what it does not.
In that same vein, it would surely be a mistake for Republicans to do what Trump did in 2018, holding out for a “perfect” deal that is effectively unachievable.
The bill was even endorsed by the acting head of Customs and Border Patrol, as well as the union which represents border agents – hardly a bastion of the political left. And while neither Democrats nor Republicans got everything they wanted, the deal was no less a good one for each party and a step in the right direction – one could even call it a compromise.
Put another way, not only did the bill include red-meat for Republicans, it would have also addressed one of the greatest weaknesses of the Democratic party and the Biden administration to date – a perception that they are weak on the border.
To that end, less than one-quarter (22%) of American voters say Biden, rather than former President Trump, is better able to secure the border, while a strong majority (57%) back the former president over the incumbent on this critical issue, per recent NBC News polling.
Far from being an outlier, the aforementioned NBC poll is one of a slew of polls which underscore how big of a vulnerability this is for Biden and Democrats: Across all recent polling, Biden’s approval on the issue of immigration and the border is a dismal 32% according to the RealClearPolitics average.
Perhaps that is why the deal was “dead-on arrival” when it hit the Republican-controlled House floor. The worst kept secret in Washington is that Donald Trump wants the border to be a hammer with which he can slam Biden, and unfortunately – but also unsurprisingly – Republicans are bowing to Trump, which is not only irresponsible, but also bad governance.
While it is fair for Republicans to ask why it took so long for legislation to reach the House floor, this is no time for political games, especially given the inclusion of GOP priorities in the bill.
For Democrats, it appears that there is finally a realization that the border is a big vulnerability in 2024, which may explain why Senate Democrats agreed to some of the bill’s provisions. And while the House GOP is largely responsible for the bill’s failure, Americans will likely blame Democrats, as they are the party in power, reinforcing Republican messaging that Democrats cannot be trusted to handle the border crisis.
Moreover, for Democrats, the failure to pass funding for Ukraine hamstrings Biden’s ability to follow through on his promise since the start of Russia’s invasion, that the United States would not let Ukraine be defeated.
Closer to home, California would have benefitted dramatically from a deal. California is home to 10.4 million immigrants, 23% of the nation’s foreign-born population. And by a margin of more than 2-to-1 (62% to 30%), Californians do not feel the southern border is secure enough to prevent migrants from entering the country illegally, according to a UC Berkeley poll conducted last month.
As a “sanctuary state,” California is not allowed to deport migrants here illegally. This places a disproportionate amount of responsibility on the state to deal with the migrant crisis, draining the budget and contributing to California’s $68 billion deficit. Not to mention the state’s homelessness crises has been exacerbated by an influx of migrants, placing even more strain on limited state resources.
Ultimately, a deal on the border was a chance to show Americans that President Biden and Congress could govern from the center, and would have given both parties an opportunity to show they can put solutions over partisan politics, if for nothing else than to solve an urgent problem facing the country.
This failure – especially on a bill both parties recognize is sorely needed and which addressed priorities on both sides of the aisle – has left our elected officials looking incompetent once again, exposed vulnerabilities on both sides, and demands renewed efforts to push this bipartisan legislation over the finish line.
Douglas Schoen is a Democratic political consultant.
