McConnell stuck between the border and a hard place
Last December, on the cusp of the Christmas holiday, Mitch McConnell stood before reporters and declared that providing assistance to Ukraine was Republicans No. 1 priority.
A year later, McConnell has placed an asterisk next to that paramount concern – a concession that nods to his party’s dwindling patience with a foreign war and rising agitation about a worsening domestic problem.
Acquiescing to the demands of his caucus, McConnell has preconditioned a $110 billion foreign aid package – nearly half of which is earmarked for Ukraine’s fight against Russia – on making meaningful changes to securing the southern border.
“It’s clear that he knows that there’s no necessity to have new border policy paired with foreign aid. He also knows that supplemental funding does not have to have new policy in it – hasn’t ever had new policy in it,” said Ronnate Asirwatham, who handles government relations on immigration for the NETWORK lobby of Catholic Social Justice.
“He really wants Ukrainian funding, and this is his nod to the conservative side.”
The Senate GOP leader has been sparse on details defining a new border policy, other than to say it must be “something credible.”
But his position has magnified pressure on his willingness to stand his ground, risking support for his chief goal of combating Vladimir Putin’s aggression.
On Thursday, in the wake of a failed Senate vote and President Joe Biden’s expression of fresh willingness to negotiate on border provisions, McConnell took to the Senate floor to excoriate the security record of his on-again, off-again White House negotiating partner.
“Right now, the crisis created by the Biden Administration’s neglect is bringing illegal aliens to the United States at a rate of 300,000 a month,” McConnell said. “That’s roughly the population of Lexington, Kentucky, arriving every month. And thanks to an asylum and parole system that desperately needs fixing, many of them are just brought straight in.”
But immigration advocacy groups say this language is meant to scapegoat populations attempting to flee horrific life-threatening situations. Asylum to the U.S. is designed to protect the vulnerable from persecution, but both sides agree the system is overwhelmed and breaking at the seams.
Martin Kim, director of immigration advocacy at Asian Americans Advancing Justice --AAJC, said that instead of clamping down on asylum seekers, lawmakers should embrace funding to increase processing capacity and reduce backlogs. That’s a position he knows is politically unpopular as Americans see images of migrants walking through a porous southern border.
“When it comes to national security … we know criminal activity, terrorist activity is a very rare occurrence,” Kim said, referring to migrants, adding, “Is it really comparable to talking about a war to people seeking asylum? Those two things are not equivalent.”
Yet, many Republicans are exasperated by sending billions of U.S. tax dollars overseas to a war that’s stuck in a stalemate while they’re unable to bolster a system closer to home that even a Democratic president has deemed “broken.”
The Ukraine aid – precious to both Biden and McConnell – is the best leverage for action as conservatives see it.
“Whose borders are more important in this stage in the game? As a political matter, McConnell is kind of boxed into a corner,” said Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which has been lobbying for reforms of the parole and asylum systems that permit non-citizens entry into the country.
“He has to be looking at these polls coming out of places like New York City and showing voters up in arms in these major blue cities.
We’re skeptical about McConnell’s willingness to go to the mat on this kind of thing … Intensity of voter saliency is going to guide McConnell.”
In his own remarks on Thursday, Democratic Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer cited McConnell’s own previous remarks that didn’t tie Ukraine to migration.
“In another speech here on the floor, Leader McConnell added that ‘Now…is not the time to ease up’ on helping Ukraine defending their sovereignty. Interestingly, he didn’t mention anything about the southern border that day,” Schumer said.
Politics is a fluid business, a trade McConnell has maneuvered through to preserve decades of survival.
But there are a few guiding directives that mold Washington. One is that military interests usually win out.
“No doubt, President Biden will get the funds he has requested for both Ukraine and Israel,” wrote Scott McConnell, founding editor of The American Conservative. “There is no safer bet in Washington than that requests for increased military funding will be honored.”
The other is that immigration reform is even tougher to hatch than gun control.
“I wouldn’t personally expect anything coming out of the Senate to have real value in terms of border security and re-implementing the rule of law,” said George Fishman, a senior legal fellow with Center for Immigration Studies who formerly worked on the House Judiciary Committee.
“If it comes down to nail biting time, I don’t think there’d be any chance of getting fundamental reforms into the final package.”
This story was originally published December 8, 2023 at 1:59 PM with the headline "McConnell stuck between the border and a hard place."
