Developments
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) said that as early as today, and “no later than Sunday,” the chamber’s leadership will post the full text of a spending bill including aid to Ukraine and Israel, border spending, and other priorities—plus a new section changing U.S. law making asylum—and perhaps other legal migration pathways—more difficult to attain at the U.S.-Mexico border.
This section is the product of more than two months of talks between a small group of senators. Even yesterday, Schumer said, “Conversations are ongoing, and some issues still need resolution, but we are getting very close.”
Schumer expects to hold a cloture vote (to end debate on the bill and move to a vote) next Wednesday. The Senate is scheduled to go on a two-week recess after next week.
While the bill may pass the Senate, legislators and analysts say that its prospects of becoming law are growing dimmer. It may fail to win a majority of Republican votes in the Democratic-majority Senate, which would weaken it as it goes to the Republican-majority House of Representatives, where Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) and other GOP leaders have been voicing opposition.
- Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-New York), “Majority Leader Schumer Floor Remarks Providing An Update On The National Security Supplemental“ (Senate Democrats, February 1, 2024).
- Andrew Desiderio, “3 Big Questions About the Senate’s Border Security Package” (Punchbowl News, February 1, 2024).
- Karoun Demirjian, “Schumer Plans Vote Next Week on Border and Ukraine Deal, but Prospects Are in Doubt” (The New York Times, February 1, 2024).
- “Senate to Vote Next Week on Bipartisan Border Bill, Schumer Says” (The Guardian (Uk), February 1, 2024).
- David French, “Pass the Immigration Bill” (The New York Times, February 1, 2024).
A letter from 22 Congressional Hispanic Caucus members prods the Biden administration’s Justice and Homeland Security Departments to investigate the state of Texas for impeding Border Patrol’s access to a broad swath of riverfront in Eagle Pass.
- “CHC Texas Members, Chair Barragán, Urge Administration to Investigate Reports of Governor Abbott Obstructing Border Patrol“ (Congressional Hispanic Caucus, February 1, 2024).
- Joseph Morton, “Democrats Push Biden to Get More Assertive in Border Clash With Gov. Greg Abbott” (The Dallas Morning News, February 1, 2024).
“He forgets that Texas used to belong to Mexico and puts up barbed wire fences and has an anti-immigrant policy against those who, out of necessity, have to go to the United States to make a living,” said Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R).
- Pedro Dominguez, “Amlo Acusa a Greg Abbott de Ser “Antimexicano”” (Milenio (Mexico), February 1, 2024).
“What makes Abbott’s recent actions most bizarre, though, is his target: Border Patrol,” reads an analysis from Texas Monthly’s Jack Herrera.
- Jack Herrera, “Border Patrol and Texas Troopers Were Once the Best of Friends. What Happened?” (Texas Monthly, February 1, 2024).
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) is sending a battalion of the Florida State Guard to the border. This force is different from a National Guard, which sometimes can come under federal control: several states also have (usually tiny) paramilitary forces, commanded by their governors, and funded entirely with state budgets. It is likely that the U.S. Code does not authorize their use outside their home states.
- A.g. Gancarski, “Ron Desantis Announces State Guard Deployment to Mexican Border, Expanding His Armed Force’s Mission” (Florida Politics, February 1, 2024).
- Hanna Holthaus, “‘Inflection Point’: Gov. Ron Desantis Sends Florida National, State Guard to Texas” (USA Today, February 1, 2024).
Analyses and Feature Stories
The New York Times’s Carl Hulse wrote an overview of past 21st-century attempts to push bipartisan border and immigration reforms through Congress. All failed, despite majority support, due to far-right opposition.
- Carl Hulse, “History of Failure on Border Policy Hangs Over Current Push in Congress” (The New York Times, February 1, 2024).
The Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler and CBS News’s Camilo Montoya-Galvez recall that—contrary to what Speaker Johnson has been arguing—the law does not permit President Biden to ban migrants once, like asylum seekers, they have arrived on U.S. soil.
- Glenn Kessler, “Analysis | Does Biden Need a New Law to ‘Shut Down the Border’?” (The Washington Post, February 1, 2024).
- Camilo Montoya-Galvez, “Could Biden “Shut Down” the Border Now? What to Know About the Latest Immigration Debate” (CBS News, February 1, 2024).
Politico reports that Republicans are making the border and migration their main campaign issue in a special election to replace expelled Rep. George Santos in Long Island, New York.
The outcome of this February 13 vote could be important for House Republicans’ effort to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. They need a majority of the House to send it to the Senate, will get no Democratic votes, and Colorado Republican Rep. Ken Buck yesterday said he opposes impeachment.
- Emily Ngo, “Republicans Test Border Security as Campaign Strategy in Bellwether Special Election” (Politico, February 2, 2024).
- Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling, “That’s One Vote Lost: House Goper Shreds Mayorkas Impeachment” (The New Republic, February 1, 2024).
At the Los Angeles Times, David Savage looked at a 2012 dissenting opinion by Justice Antonin Scalia that today forms the basis for Republican governors’ claims that they can pursue their own immigration policies independent of the federal government.
- David G. Savage, “A Scalia Dissent Is Now Driving the Texas-Biden Dispute Over Illegal Immigration” (The Los Angeles Times, February 1, 2024).
At Just Security, Houston lawyer Kate Huddleston explained the far-right and white-supremacist history of what is now a mainstream Republican push to justify state border crackdowns using the Constitution’s “invasion” clause. El Paso Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas) and others told the Houston Chronicle that “invasion” rhetoric incites violence.
- Kate Huddleston, “Biden Admin Must Use Civil Rights Enforcement to Push Back in Texas” (Just Security, February 1, 2024).
- Benjamin Wermund, “Texas Republicans Are Ratcheting Up Talk of a Border Invasion. Critics Worry It Will Incite Violence.” (The Houston Chronicle, February 1, 2024).
About 400 remaining members of a migrant “caravan” that began near Mexico’s border at Christmas are making their way on foot through Mexico’s southern state of Veracruz. That’s a walk of over 500 miles.
- Eirinet Gomez, “Llego Caravana Exodo de la Pobreza a Veracruz” (La Jornada (Mexico), February 1, 2024).