Breaking down 12 major points in the border deal, including the parameters of a border shutdown, increased visas and work permits for asylum seekers.
The bipartisan border security deal that’s headed for a pivotal first vote this week would pair $20 billion in emergency spending with policy changes that would amount to the most stringent immigration bill endorsed by a Democratic president in recent memory.
President Joe Biden is calling the bill the “toughest and fairest” in decades — and progressives are calling it a return to the Trump era.
The 370-page bill is already in jeopardy, with House Republican leaders vowing that they’ll never vote on the long-negotiated package. They are joined by conservative senators who argue that the $118 billion-plus legislation, which also sends tens of billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, has too many loopholes to effectively stop spiking migration at the southern border.
Progressives in both chambers of Congress are also turned off by the deal, lamenting that it amounts to an embrace of Donald Trump-style border policies and an undue shrinking of the asylum system designed to protect vulnerable immigrants.
Yet Biden is throwing his weight behind the plan, which he called “essential” to making the U.S.-Mexico border “more orderly, secure, fair, and humane.” It would deliver far more emergency cash than his October request for less than $14 billion in border funding as illegal border crossings from Mexico reached an all-time high in December, with nearly 250,000 arrests.
As members of both parties scrap over the substance of the bill, here’s a rundown of what’s really in it:
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/02/05/biden-bipartisan-immigration-deal-00139558