Developments
Ex-president and likely Republican nominee Donald Trump is opposing a possible Senate deal that might restrict the right to asylum and other migration pathways in exchange for Republican assent to a package of spending for Ukraine aid and other priorities. Trump says the senators’ agreed migration restrictions—which remain undisclosed—are “another Gift to the Radical Left Democrats” because they don’t go far enough, and that he would handle the border after his election.
While this casts a cloud over their prospects of passing a deal, Senate negotiators and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) are pledging to forge ahead with negotiations despite Trump’s objections. As has been the case in several past weeks, they say that legislative language may emerge “next week.”
That language may include a new Title 42-style authority to expel asylum seekers from the United States when daily migrant encounters exceed a number, along with a higher standard that asylum seekers would have to meet to pass credible-fear screening interviews.
Negotiators don’t seem to have agreed on Republican demands to limit the presidential humanitarian parole authority. Camilo Montoya-Galvez of CBS News tweeted that proposals under discussion “have included numerical caps on parole grants, barring migrants with parole status from asylum and limiting the use of the authority at land borders.”
On January 24 McConnell had made comments casting doubt about whether, given Trump’s opposition, it made sense to keep pushing for the migration-restrictions deal. Yesterday, the Minority Leader—who has a poor relationship with Trump—adjusted his tone and threw support behind his party’s chief negotiator, Sen. James Lankford (R-Oklahoma).
“Trump’s push to kill the border deal to deny President Biden a legislative win is upsetting members on both sides of the aisle as negotiators hope to wrap up work on an agreement within days,” The Hill noted. Its reporting adds, though: “A senior aide to House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) told a group of Senate Republican chiefs of staff Thursday that the Senate border security pact has no chance of passing the House,” where the Republican majority may, like Trump, insist on harder-line migration restrictions.
Lead Democratic negotiator Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Connecticut) said Republicans are “going to make a decision in the next 24 hours as to whether they actually want to get something done, or whether they want to leave the border a mess for political reasons.”
“Giving up on a border security bill would be a self-inflicted GOP wound,” read an editorial from the Wall Street Journal’s very conservative editorial board. “President Biden would claim, with cause, that Republicans want border chaos as an election issue rather than solving the problem. Voter anger may over time move from Mr. Biden to the GOP, and the public will have a point.”
The Senate is out of session until Tuesday; negotiators expect to meet through the weekend.
- Camilo Montoya-Galvez, Kaia Hubbard, Margaret Brennan, “Senate Immigration Talks Continue as Divisions Among Republicans Threaten to Sink Deal” (CBS News, January 25, 2024).
- Burgess Everett, Jordain Carney, Ursula Perano, “Mcconnell Dispels Doubts About His Commitment to a Border-Ukraine Deal” (Politico, January 25, 2024).
- Burgess Everett, Jordain Carney, Ursula Perano, “Senate Gop Torn Up With Confusion After Mcconnell Clarifies Border-Ukraine Comments” (Politico, January 25, 2024).
- Alexander Bolton, “Senate Gop Pleads With Trump Not to Kill Ukraine-Border Security Deal” (The Hill, January 25, 2024).
- Aaron Blake, “The Gop Sure Looks Like It Wants to Punt on Border Crisis to Help Trump” (The Washington Post, January 25, 2024).
- Annie Karni, “Trump Strengthens Grip on Capitol Hill as He Presses Toward Nomination” (The New York Times, January 25, 2024).
- Leigh Ann Caldwell, Liz Goodwin, “Republicans Struggle to Hold Together Ukraine-for-Border Deal” (The Washington Post, January 25, 2024).
- Alexis Simendinger, Kristina Karisch, “Morning Report — Trump vs. The Border Deal” (The Hill, January 26, 2024).
- Eugene Daniels, Rachael Bade, Ryan Lizza, “Clean-Up on Aisle Mcconnell” (Politico, January 26, 2024).
- Eugene Daniels, Rachael Bade, Ryan Lizza, “Mcconnell’s Second Thoughts” (Politico, January 25, 2024).
- Igor Bobic, Jennifer Bendery, “Republicans Flail on Bipartisan Border Deal After Trump Orders Them to Reject It” (The Huffington Post, January 25, 2024).
- Stef W. Kight, “Republicans’ Border Split Screen” (Axios, January 25, 2024).
- Lauren Gambino, “Us Border Policy Deal Within Reach Despite Efforts by Trump to Derail It, Senators Say” (The Guardian (Uk), January 25, 2024).
- Maria Sacchetti, “Explaining Immigration Parole, One Sticking Point in Ukraine Aid-Border Deal” (The Washington Post, January 25, 2024).
- “Camilo Montoya-Galvez @Camiloreports on Twitter” (Twitter, January 25, 2024).
- Ted Hesson, “Explainer: What Republicans and Democrats Want to Do on Us-Mexico Border Security” (Reuters, Reuters, January 26, 2024).
- Andrew Prokop, “Why Trump Fears a Biden-Gop Immigration Deal” (Vox, January 25, 2024).
- James Politi, “Us Aid for Kyiv at Risk as Republicans Bow to Donald Trump Over Border Deal” (Financial Times (UK), January 25, 2024).
- Greg Sargent, “Trump Forces Terrified Republicans to Bend the Knee Yet Again” (The New Republic, January 25, 2024).
- “Editorial: A Gop Border Reckoning” (The Wall Street Journal, January 25, 2024).
- “Burgess Everett @Burgessev on Twitter” (Twitter, January 25, 2024).
Doctors without Borders, which operates two humanitarian facilities in the part of Panama where migrants emerge from the treacherous Darién Gap migration route, revealed that it “treated 676 survivors” of sexual violence in 2023—214 of them alone in December. “One act of sexual violence every three and a half hours in the Darién jungle” perpetrated by criminals against migrants in this lawless zone.
- “Pese a Multiples Alertas, No se Detiene la Violencia Sexual en el Darien” (Doctors Without Borders, January 25, 2024).
In Mexico’s southern-border city of Tapachula, about 1,500 migrants from Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Venezuela and other countries formed a new “caravan.” No caravan has succeeded in reaching the U.S. border since late 2018: the mass marches are now attempts to pressure the Mexican government to provide documentation. A much larger caravan that departed Tapachula over Christmas is much reduced and moving slowly through Mexico’s southern state of Oaxaca.
“We are trying to seek the possibility of people staying in the southern part of Mexico, because the travel is dangerous,” Mexico’s foreign minister, Alicia Bárcena, told PBS NewsHour.
A Honduran migrant who had arrived in Chihuahua city by train told Raíchali that “the National Guard asked them to ‘get off by force.’ When they refused, the agents climbed into the train cars and beat them to make them get off the train.”
- Edgar H. Clemente, “Nueva Caravana Con Mil 500 Migrantes Sale de Tapachula” (La Jornada (Mexico), January 26, 2024).
- Amna Nawaz, Teresa Cebrian Aranda, “Mexico’s Foreign Secretary Discusses What Her Country Is Doing to Ease Border Crisis” (Newshour, PBS, January 25, 2024).
- Raul F. Perez Lira, “Denuncian Personas Migrantes Golpes y Robos por Parte de Guardia Nacional en Chihuahua” (Raíchali (Mexico), January 25, 2024).
25 Republican governors signed a statement backing Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) in his dispute with the Biden administration over Border Patrol agents’ access to border sites, cutting of state forces’ concertina wire, and other state efforts to block and arrest migrants and asylum seekers.
- “Governor Mcmaster, Fellow Republican Governors Issue Joint Statement Supporting Texas’ Constitutional Right to Self-Defense” (South Carolina Governors Office, January 25, 2024).
- Philip Bump, “Timeline: An Increasingly Tense Dispute Between Texas and the Federal Government” (The Washington Post, January 25, 2024).
Representatives of Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, and Panama met on January 24 and signed a “Panama City Declaration” committing to improved cooperation on protecting migrants in 2024.
- ““Migracion Irregular Sin Precedentes”: Centroamerica y Mexico Acuerdan Buscar Soluciones a los “Desplazamientos Forzados”” (EFE, Prensa Libre (Guatemala), January 25, 2024).
Analyses and Feature Stories
At ICE’s detention centers, the DHS Inspector-General looked at 6 cases of hysterectomies performed on detained migrant women—and found that 2 of the hysterectomies were medically unnecessary, according to a new report.
- “Ice Major Surgeries Were Not Always Properly Reviewed and Approved for Medical Necessity” (Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General, January 25, 2024).
A FWD.us survey of recent humanitarian parole recipients shows that nearly all are participating in the U.S. economy and “an extremely low share (3%)” is depending on private or government assistance.
- Phillip Connor, “Parole Policy for Americas Has Been a Success” (Fwd.us, January 25, 2024).
A report from the Migration Policy Institute “examines the history of the federal government’s efforts to improve southwest border security in the modern era” and concludes that the response includes better interagency coordination and international partnerships.
- Alan D. Bersin, Ben Rohrbaugh, Nate Bruggeman, “Migration at the U.S.-Mexico Border: A Challenge Decades in the Making” (Migration Policy Institute, January 25, 2024).
“Far from developing a climate refugee status (not mentioned in the DHS plan), U.S. border policy for climate migrants is to deter people with walls, armed agents, technological surveillance, arrests, detention, deportation, and mind-boggling, slow-moving bureaucracy,” wrote Todd Miller at the Border Chronicle.
- Todd Miller, “Threat Multiplier: The U.S. Border and the Invisible Climate War” (The Border Chronicle, January 25, 2024).
On the Right
- “The Collapse of Law at Our Border” (National Review, January 25, 2024).
- sChuck Devore, “Biden’s Border Chaos Goes Global” (Texas Public Policy Foundation, Fox News, January 26, 2024).
- James P. Pinkerton, “Remember Eagle Pass! Texas Rallies the Red States” (The American Conservative, January 26, 2024).
- Liz Peek, “Joe Biden’s Immigration Avalanche Is About to Bury Him” (The Hill, January 25, 2024).
- Sumantra Maitra, “Deterring Mass-Migration Is Not Difficult” (The American Conservative, January 25, 2024).