A small bipartisan group of senators has reportedly negotiated for the past several months on a compromise border security bill that, if passed and implemented by President Joe Biden's administration, would ostensibly dramatically curtail the historic and unprecedented illegal immigration that has been ongoing for the past three years.
The full text and intricate details of that measure haven't been released yet, but Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) announced on Thursday his intent to ram the measure through the chamber on an expedited basis for a vote within a matter of days, Breitbart reported.
The still-unknown full extent of the negotiated legislation -- which has been attached to supplemental defense funding for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan -- will supposedly be finally unveiled for the public, and the rest of the senators, to actually read for themselves at some unspecified point over the weekend.
The Hill reported that Sen. Schumer took to the floor on Thursday and informed his fellow senators, "I want members to be aware that we plan to post the full text of the national security supplemental as early as tomorrow, no later than Sunday."
"That will give members plenty of time to read the bill before voting on it," the Democratic leader laughably added, given that initial procedural votes on the as-yet-unseen bill will begin on Monday and continue throughout the week.
"As for the timing of the vote, I plan to file cloture on the motion to proceed to the vehicle by Monday, leading to the first vote on the national security supplemental no later than Wednesday," Schumer added along with a specific plea for his Republican colleagues to vote in favor of the bill that almost none of them have seen yet.
Sen. Schumer's request of GOP senators is a particularly tough one, given that the border security bill -- negotiated in private by Sens. James Lankford (R-OK), Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ), and Chris Murphy (D-CT) -- has already been deemed a non-starter and "dead on arrival" in the Republican-led House based on a few leaked details last week, according to Axios.
What the bill supposedly does is mandate the border be completely closed, with some exceptions, if daily illegal crossings exceed 5,000 per day -- a number that left unchecked would equal approximately 1.8 million permitted illegal entrants per year -- and impose harsher penalties for illegal border crossers, a streamlined asylum claim process, and a reduction in parole releases, among other things.
Interestingly enough, while President Joe Biden and Senate leaders in both parties have touted the border compromise bill, it isn't just rank-and-file Republicans in the House and Senate who oppose the measure but also a surprising contingent of House Democrats, according to a separate report from The Hill.
Indeed, while the GOP is nearly united in saying the border bill is weak and doesn't go far enough to secure the border, some Democratic Hispanic Caucus members and progressives have lambasted the legislation as being too harsh and have complained about not being included in the negotiations on the details.
That could lead rather ironically to a situation in which the measure ends up being scuttled by a temporary alliance of conservatives and progressives for opposite reasons.
As for the opposition to the border security compromise bill among Senate Republicans, which appears to largely be led by Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), he has been quite outspoken in decrying the attempted rush job by Leader Schumer and the fleetingly small window provided for lawmakers, and the public, to read and fully digest the still-secret details of the negotiations, much less engage in the at-times lengthy process of considering amendments and necessary changes.
In a post on Thursday to his official X account, Lee said, "There are rumors we could finally see a text of the mysterious 'border deal' (that doesn’t secure the border) in the next 24 hours. Remember: GOP conference passed my resolution that we need time to debate and amend whatever bill we’re given. A single weekend doesn’t count."
The Utah senator was more adamant in his opposition in a post that same day on his personal X account, as Lee wrote in response to a post about Schumer's timeline for voting, "Unacceptable. They’ve had months to write it -- in complete secrecy, no less. A few days won’t be nearly enough to read, debate, and amend this thing."
