Congress Careens Toward Border Security Showdown as Foreign Aid, Shutdown Fights Loom

Congress kicks off the new year this week with urgent business to attend to, from funding for Ukraine and Israel in their wartime efforts to avoiding a partial government shutdown. But one seemingly stubborn issue that for years has eluded meaningful reform may be the linchpin to any success moving forward: border security.

A number of GOP lawmakers are willing to stall on key funding issues to address migrant crossings as the Republican Party solidifies border security as a top 2024 concern.

The next few weeks will be a major test of whether GOP leadership can reach a compromise with Democrats without losing their own hard-line members – some of whom are digging their heels in and threatening to upend negotiations on government funding ahead of a pair of deadlines for a shutdown. And the outcome of that test could mean Congress grinds to a halt until Republicans’ demands are met.

Negotiations have advanced in the Senate, where Republicans are discussing paths forward with Democrats and the White House.

Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma, who has led the border security talks for Republicans, originally told “Fox News Sunday” that the Senate will hopefully see text for their version of a border security bill this week. But shortly after that comment, he indicated the process was taking longer than expected.

“I would tell you as recently as yesterday, I was thinking we’re close. But in all of our meetings last night and today, we’re not going to be able to get there by Wednesday,” he said on Monday as senators returned to Capitol Hill. “We just didn’t make progress as fast as I hoped we would.”

If the Senate is able to pass such legislation, the spotlight then moves to House Speaker Mike Johnson, whose members returned to the Capitol on Tuesday. Johnson’s work keeping his narrow majority in the chamber together is cut out for him. He has held firm in his backing for a House GOP-passed border bill. If he sways in that stance, his support among some conservatives could be in jeopardy.

“If it looks like H.R. 2, we’ll talk about it,” Johnson said of any proposed border legislation.

Not only is H.R. 2 – the legislation that Republicans pushed through the House – unlikely to get the support of Senate Democrats or the White House, it’s all but certain that it won’t resemble any bill that passes the upper chamber. It focuses on enhancing both legal and physical deterrents against immigration, tightening the rules that allow migrants to stay in the U.S. and stiffening the penalties for illegal entry. Along with non-controversial provisions like increasing the number of Border Patrol agents, the House proposal also contains several items that are nonstarters with Democrats, reinstating a number of Trump-era policies like resuming construction of the border wall and imposing strict asylum, parole and detention policies.

“When the House clings to H.R. 2 as the only solution … we’re not going to get a deal,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters last week.

Anything coming from Senate leadership – whose members are working with Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas – is already at a disadvantage in the House. Many Republicans there are advancing plans to impeach the secretary amid a surge in border crossings in which officials processed more migrants who entered the U.S. illegally last month than in any other month in the agency’s history before showing signs of subsiding.

Even if congressional leadership does reach compromise legislation, a small group of Republicans have hinted they may hold out on the deal for political reasons – over fears that a successful border security bill could bolster President Joe Biden’s image among moderates whose votes are up for grabs on Election Day.

“Let me tell you, I’m not willing to do too damn much right now to help a Democrat and to help Joe Biden’s approval rating,” Rep. Troy Nehls, a Texas Republican, told CNN. “I will not help the Democrats try to improve this man’s dismal approval ratings. I’m not going to do it. Why would I? Chuck Schumer has had H.R. 2 on his desk since July. And he did nothing with it.”

Adding to the challenge, some Republicans are willing to vote against funding the government ahead of a partial shutdown that could begin Jan. 19 if their demands on border security aren’t met.

“Urgency means not waiting for the next election, and the only tool Congress has left to stop this President from ignoring the law and endangering citizens is its spending power,” Rep. Chip Roy of Texas wrote in a letter last week. “So, I am obliged to inform you of my duty to refuse to fund – or otherwise empower – the United States Government, or any foreign government it is supporting, unless and until it fulfills its constitutional obligation to defend our borders from invasion, as required in our republican form of government, and make the people of Texas whole for its breach of duty.”

A bipartisan agreement regarding top-line spending was announced on Sunday and has already drawn the ire of hard-liners in the GOP who were seeking budget cuts, but some Republicans are already pledging to vote against any bill that comes out of the agreement.

“This $1.6 Trillion dollar budget agreement does nothing to secure the border, stop the invasion, or stop the weaponized government targeting Biden’s political enemies and innocent Americans,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia wrote on social media.

The tactics underscore the possibility that a significant section of the GOP would rather see Congress grind to a halt than compromise on border security. It’s already paralyzed the progress of a White House supplemental spending measure intended to provide military aid to Israel and Ukraine – the latter of which has garnered Republican opposition on its own. That package contains funds for the border, but Republicans complain that it’s more focused on managing new arrivals than preventing them.

“If President Biden wants a supplemental spending bill focused on national security, it better begin with defending America’s national security,” Johnson said during a trip to the southern border last week with a contingent of hard-line Republicans.

And the group is likely pleasing Trump with their strategy.

“The most urgent task facing the next president is to end Joe Biden’s nation-wrecking nightmare on our southern border,” Trump wrote in a recent opinion piece in The Des Moines Register. “I am the only candidate who will stop this invasion – and I will do it on day one.”

Biden administration officials have accused the GOP of putting politics over policy as they hold up aid to Ukraine in its ongoing war against Russia and military assistance to Israel in its effort to defeat Hamas.

“After voting to eliminate thousands of Border Patrol agents and undercut our fentanyl crackdown, opposing the record border security funding President Biden delivered, and now blocking his urgently-needed proposal to hire more CBP agents and invest in new fentanyl-detection technology, House Republicans are once more compromising America’s national security and economic growth with shutdown threats,” White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said in a statement last week.

Schumer is hopeful that bipartisan legislation on border security from the Senate will put pressure on the House GOP members to fall in line.

“I think if the Senate gets something done in a bipartisan way, it will put enormous pressure on the House to get something done as well and not just to let these hard-right people get up and say, the 30 of them, to dictate how the whole country should work,” he said. “Because what they believe is clearly in the minority of the Republican Party and our country.”

To be sure, leaders on both sides of the aisle acknowledge that something needs to be done about the border. U.S. Customs and Border Protection encountered just under 2.5 million migrants at the Southwest border in the last fiscal year, a number that has escalated each year of the Biden presidency and trended higher in the first two months of fiscal ‘24.

Biden has indicated willingness to compromise on the issue as northern cities in New York and New Jersey struggle to provide for an influx of migrants sent from border states – mostly from Texas by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott in what began as a political stunt but has since caused serious hardship for several big cities and their budgets.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who has estimated that providing for migrants being bussed to Texas will cost $12 billion over the next three years, recently issued an executive order restricting bus travel from Texas in an effort to curtail the transports. He, along with other Democratic mayors and governors, has urged the White House to act more decisively to address the crisis.

A recent poll from CBS News found that Biden’s approval rating on handling immigration is at a record low. Overall, 68% in the new poll disapprove of how Biden is handling the border.

But the poll noted that congressional Republicans also received low ratings, with 65% of respondents disapproving of their handling of the border. Additionally, it shows an increasing disapproval of Republicans’ strategy to send migrants to northern cities.

While it’s clear that border security is an increasing concern among both political parties, what will be done about it in the coming weeks will set the tone for what Congress and the country can expect from lawmakers leading up to the 2024 election.