Biden Tied Ukraine Aid to Border Security, and It Backfired on Him
By: Zolan Kanno-Youngs (New York Times via Yahoo)
Biden is chasing another pooch. Let's go, Brandon!
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
WASHINGTON — The White House portrayed it as a step toward compromise.
When President Joe Biden sent his request to Congress last month for aid to Ukraine and Israel, he included a request for more money to help with security at the border with Mexico, a sweetener intended to both address a crisis and win over support of Republicans.
But the move has now left Biden in a box.
By putting the issue on the table, he ignited demands from the right for broad changes to border policy, leaving his own party divided on a topic that many Democrats see as a political vulnerability heading into 2024 and further complicating prospects for top foreign policy priorities.
The president signaled on Wednesday that he was open to further negotiations with Senate Republicans after they blocked his emergency spending bill.
Biden now faces a difficult choice about how much to throw himself into talks on an issue that for decades has defied efforts to reach bipartisan compromise. And he will have to decide how far to go in giving in to conservative demands that he substantially choke off the number of migrants admitted to the United States while their asylum claims are considered.
“The president of the United States should be involved,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. “Everybody behind me will vote to aid Ukraine if we can get the border right.”
The White House has limited time to reach a compromise with a Congress whose members are set to leave for recess next week. Sen. Christopher S. Murphy, D-Conn., told reporters he was prepared to continue talks through the weekend.
On Thursday, however, Senate Republicans showed no sign of backing down.
Senior Biden administration officials have told both sides in the negotiations that the White House is open to making it more difficult to gain asylum in the United States, according to four people familiar with the matter. One such measure would impose a stricter definition for migrants to meet when they claim they need refuge because they fear persecution in their home countries.
But Republicans say that is not enough. They want the United States to impose policies that would make most migrants ineligible for asylum and require them to wait in Mexico until their case is processed.
The impasse has left the heart of Biden’s foreign policy — support for the war in Ukraine — hanging in the balance.
“We’re obviously deeply concerned about this. We’ve got a few more weeks here,” John Kirby, a White House spokesperson, said of securing aid for Ukraine. “There are a small number of Republicans that want to hold that aid hostage for some pretty extreme border policies that the president is not willing to talk about. That said, he did say we’re willing to negotiate in good faith.”
On Wednesday, the president implored Congress to put aside “petty, partisan, angry politics” and pass the $111 billion bill. He said failure to do so could enable President Vladimir Putin of Russia to reclaim momentum in the war.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine has said he needs the U.S. funding to defend against Russia’s invasion. Kirby said Thursday that the White House was “not in a position to make that promise to Ukraine, given where things are on the Hill.”
Republicans, meanwhile, are calling attention to migration at the southwest border, which has topped 8,000 crossings a day in recent days — and become a major political liability for Biden.
Immigration advocates say the impasse is evidence that Biden never should have paired the wartime funding with immigration reform in the first place.
“Grouping the issues together in the supplemental funding request strategically and substantially was a catastrophic error because it was the signal, it was the beginning of what came to fruition yesterday when the president said immigrant communities are a bargaining chip,” said Heidi Altman, the policy director at the liberal National Immigrant Justice Center. “That’s a betrayal.”
Kirby said the White House had no regrets about grouping the administration’s foreign policy priorities with immigration in the bill because they are all of an “urgent nature.”
“It was in our national security urgent request: $6 billion for the border. We share a sense of urgency, so act on that,” Kirby said.
Biden’s aides have consistently responded to Republican attacks on the subject of the border by pointing to a plan proposed at the start of the Biden administration that would have established a pathway to citizenship while increasing funding for the border. Republicans, they say, would rather use the migration crisis as a political weapon than compromise on solutions.
The White House has received backlash from both sides, highlighting the challenge of reaching a compromise over one of the most polarizing issues in domestic politics.
Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., said in a statement co-signed by 10 other Senate Democrats that “using a one-time spending package to enact these unrelated permanent policy changes sets a dangerous precedent and risks assistance to our international partners.”
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, spoke for his GOP colleagues on Thursday when he boasted about pushing immigration to the forefront of the national conversation. “It looks like we’ve got the president’s attention,” he said.
Tags
Who is online
152 visitors
If the neoliberal status quo still worked, Republicans would have to accept Biden's (lack of) border policy to support the military - and - Democrats would have to accept Biden's military quagmires to support the open southern border. Biden doesn't seem to understand that Reagan/Clinton politics can't hold the center any longer.
Republicans ain't gonna fall all over themselves to fight the Cold War again. And Democrats' summer of love demonstrated a preference for terrorist politics. The political world has been turned topsy turvy and few believe in the neoliberal flat earth any longer.
This borders on clickbait.
1) Obviously the GOP has ZERO interest in fixing the border. Why would they? Every election cycle, it's their favorite political football.
2) We give FAR more to Israel every year; why not cut their funding as well as the Ukraine? Because the GOP want's Putin to win.
For the record, I completely support Israel and agree we should be helping them in their fight against HAMAS...
Then it's clickbait from the New York Times. Don't ignore that illegal immigration has become a hot button issue in New York.
A pathway to citizenship doesn't have anything to do with fixing border security. Several metropolitan blue islands are adopting the same demands to fix the border now that they are having to deal with the influx of illegal immigrants, Illegal immigration isn't a NIMBY problem for Democrats any longer.
Democrats want to impose conditions on funding for Israel (that favors Muslim terrorists). Did Biden expect that pushback from Democrats when he tied everything together? Biden's politics is obsolete; he doesn't know what he doing any longer.
Don't care even a little bit where it's from, Nerm.
Characterizing journalistic spin from the New York Times as clickbait indicates how much the status quo politics has changed. The status quo politics of pushing the right political buttons and checking the right boxes ain't enough any longer.
Why can't Europe pony up $66 billion to keep Ukraine fighting? Why should the Federal government subsidize New York's inflated housing prices for illegal immigrants? And that doesn't even address Democrats' demands to force Israel to stop bombing Hamas.
Like I said, the GOP has no desire to fix the border problems. Obama asked congress for 2.6 billion to address the border problems and congress told him no. My point stands.
Um, he's your president too.
Why don't you show us all the times Nancy Pelosi, as Speaker of the House, appropriated money to the WH for border security and then the results of that spending.
Unfortunately, no one needs reminding of that sad fact.
We have to live it.
A pathway to citizenship doesn't address border security. Expanding or upgrading detention facilities on the border doesn't address border security. Adding personnel to assist in filing asylum claims doesn't address border security.
Obama's requests addressed issued that resulted from the complete and total failure of border security failing to stop people illegally entering the country.
If the J6 riot had been handled like Biden handles the southern border, the rioters had to be allowed into the Capitol before anything could have been done to remove them. And the rioters would have been allowed to stay inside the Capitol until their assigned review date to determine their status. Following Biden's border policies, the J6 rioters should have been assisted by Federal law enforcement to enter the Capitol and stay inside the Capitol. Following Biden's border policies, the DOJ should be prosecuting law enforcement that used violence to prevent the rioters from entering the Capitol.
Her personal money? She doesn't have the power, nor never had the power to all by herself give public funds to anyone.
Obviously the GOP has ZERO interest in fixing the border. Why would they
bravo. No one in the world will provide a better example of gaslighting today. It’s perfect.
Thanks! It's also 100% true. Trumpy had a republican congress for 2 years and failed to get anything done at the border. Sorry, don't get to blame the dems, that's ALL on the GOP's plate. Can you explain that?
Can you explain that?
United Democratic opposition to any border security and Republicans lacked 60 votes in the Senate. Trump did what he could by executive order, foreign agreements etc.., which Democrats fought tooth in nail in court and immediately overturned when Biden took office.
But sure, blame the party that works to restrict illegal immigration and not the party that wants to abolish ICE. I'm sure there's more than one democrat out their ignorant enough to believe it.
And you will immediately whine that Biden couldn’t get anything done because republicans blocked it in the senate, hypocrisy at its finest. [Deleted]
How quickly they forget that during Obama's first term he actually had a Congress where his party held the House AND his party had 60 seats in the Senate. It was a short window but what did Obama get done when he had that type of Congress? Nothing around the border that's for sure.
It's so much easier to play the partisan game and blame the other side then look at the truth.
[Deleted]
Trump did force Democrats to provide some funding for border wall construction. Democrats recognized that border security was becoming a bigger problem but they need a scapegoat to blame for addressing that bigger problem.
"Because the GOP want's Putin to win." Unsupported bullishit.
I'm in favor of continued aid to Ukraine and Israel, but the Dems have gone rogue as far as the Southern border is concerned. The unchecked invasion by hordes of unvetted and unvaxxed mostly working age males has got to be stopped. They can wait in Mexico and make it Mexico's problem.
I fully support the Republicans finally growing a spine and starting to crack down on this
Not true. Not a single word.
Actually, Mexico has mandatory vaccinations. They are better protected against covid than we are.
Is every migrant trekking through Mexico vaxxed?
I think that if you check source you will the US ahead by 4 points in both fully vaccinated and at least one vaccinated categories.
post a link! Plus are you claiming that all the scumbags crossing the southern border are from Mexico? Or do you just not understand the border issue? Those feral animals are coming from a wide range of shitholes.
Does Mexico require vaccinations for immigrants illegally entering Mexico? Seems like that argument ignores an entire continent in the southern hemisphere.
So, are we supposed to talk about Afro-Mexicans now?
One of the most bizarre claims I have had the misfortune to read.
Totally whacked out.
When President Joe Biden sent his request to Congress last month for aid to Ukraine and Israel, he included a request for more money to help with security at the border with Mexico
the request was for money to process immigrants, not stop their invasion
Yes. Biden tied funding for Ukraine, Israel, and immigration together to force Republicans to accept the open border to get military funding for NATO/Europe. Biden didn't think Republicans would throw NATO under the bus. And IMO Biden didn't expect Democrats to throw Israel under the bus (which is not receiving a lot of journalistic attention). Biden doesn't seem to understand that the political playbook of the last 40 years has become obsolete. Biden is out of touch with today's politics.