Bipartisan border deal fails again in Senate
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Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) Photo: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
A border deal that would have allowed the president to shut down the border when crossings surge was blocked again on the Senate floor Thursday afternoon.
Why it matters: Democrats have been pounding former President Trump and Republicans for refusing to help fix a broken border system. The vote was seen as providing cover for vulnerable Senate Democrats up for re-election — and for the White House as it weighs aggressive executive actions.
- The procedural vote on the bill failed 43 to 50, before the Senate left for a Memorial Day recess.
- Only one Republican senator — Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alask.) — voted to move forward with the bill. Three others had voted yes on the deal back in February, but flipped to "no" on Thursday.
Zoom in: Two of the three negotiators of the border deal voted against it on Thursday — Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) and Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.)
- Sinema accused Democrats of playing politics with the vote, saying on the Senate floor: "To use this failure as a political punching bag only punishes those who are courageous enough" to negotiate
- Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) also lost several Democrats on the vote, as well, including Sens. Ed Markey (Mass.), Cory Booker (N.J.), Alex Padilla (Calif.) and Laphonza Butler (Calif.)
- Every Democrat with a competitive race in 2024 voted for the bill.
Progressives and Congressional Hispanic Caucus members have decried parts of the deal that would cut off access to asylum at the border.
What they're saying: "Congressional Republicans have enough time to travel to New York to kiss Trump's boots, but not enough courage to side with the American people and Border Patrol over fentanyl traffickers," Biden-Harris 2024 spokesperson James Singer said in a statement, first provided to Axios.
- "Trump proudly asked MAGA Republicans to kill the strongest bipartisan border bill in a generation because he thinks creating chaos will help him politically – they cynically followed his order," Singer continued.
Zoom out: The bipartisan bill's repeated failures show how nearly impossible it is to navigate the heated politics around immigration to pass border policy changes.
- The White House has struggled to find a winning message or strategy to address the record numbers of migrants and asylum seekers who have illegally crossed the border over the past few years.
- Border numbers fell at the start of the year, however, and have held steady over the past few months.
