The US Senate has found a way to provide multi-billion dollar aid to Ukraine: however, there is an important “but”

U.S. senators on Sunday evening unveiled details of a $118 billion package that combines federal enforcement efforts along the U.S.-Mexico border with military aid to Ukraine, Israel and other countries, beginning a long-running effort to push the bill past skeptical House Republicans who Democrats blame in the politicization of immigration while being held captive by Donald Trump.

According to The Guardian, the proposal is Joe Biden’s best chance to increase dwindling US military aid to Ukraine – a major foreign policy goal shared by both the Senate’s top Democrat, Chuck Schumer, and the top Republican, Mitch McConnell. The Senate was expected to hold a key test vote on the legislation this week, but it faced a wall of opposition from conservatives.

Joe Biden called on the US Congress to pass legislation for immigration reform and help to US allies.

The bill “includes the toughest and fairest set of border reforms in decades,” he said in a statement released by the White House.

The President of the United States added: “Now House Republicans must make a decision. Do they want to solve the problem? Or do they want to continue playing politics with the border? I made a decision. I’m ready to solve the problem.”

It’s important to note that with Congress stalled on approving $60 billion in aid to Ukraine, the US has cut off supplies of ammunition and missiles to Kiev, leaving Ukrainian soldiers without weapons as they try to break the stalemate with Russian troops, The Guardian notes. .

“The United States and our allies face multiple, complex and coordinated challenges from adversaries who seek to undermine democracy,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement.

In an effort to overcome House Republican opposition, Mitch McConnell last year insisted that changes to border policy be included in a national security funding package.

The bill would overhaul the asylum system at the border, with faster and tougher enforcement, and would give presidents new powers to immediately expel migrants if authorities believe they are overwhelmed by the number of undocumented people seeking asylum at the international border.

The tough new measures, discussed by senators-elect for months, include a new federal requirement to “close” the U.S.-Mexico border if more than 5,000 undocumented people cross the U.S. border daily and plans to quickly expel economic migrants.

Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, who left the Democratic Party in 2022 to become an independent, spoke to CBS’ Face the Nation earlier Sunday about what she and other Senate negotiators have been working on.

When the number of migrants crossing the border without an appointment with U.S. authorities approaches 4,000 per day, the U.S. government will be given the authority to voluntarily turn away all people who show up at border stations to allow time for asylum claims to be processed, she said.

In other cases, migrants would be subject to short-term detention as their asylum claims were quickly processed. Anyone who did not meet application standards would be “quickly returned to their home country,” Sinema says. “We believe that by quickly implementing this system, people who come for economic reasons will very quickly understand that this is not the way to enter our country, and will not make the sometimes dangerous or treacherous trek to our border.”

Along with provisions for faster deportations, the bill would also speed up the time it takes to process successful asylum claims. “People who do qualify for asylum will be able to quickly, in six months or less, start a new life in America,” says Kyrsten Sinema.

The Senate bill meets several demands raised by Republicans who have accused the Biden administration of failing to secure the US border. Specifically, it calls for an end to a system that allows people to remain in the U.S. while their asylum claims are pending, a process Republicans disparagingly call “catch and release.”

Up to 10,000 migrants a day are crossing the US-Mexico border without the necessary immigration documents or an appointment with US authorities, The Guardian writes.

But the Senate bill is likely to be blocked by Republican leaders in the US House of Representatives, who are following Donald Trump’s lead in opposing the deal. The former president, who is running for re-election, has made it clear that he does not want Biden to be handed a legislative victory in the border crisis.

Mike Johnson, the Republican House speaker, said the Senate bill would be “dead on arrival” if it reached his chamber. On Saturday, he also took a preemptive step that could further jeopardize the chances of the Senate bill ever becoming law, announcing that he would bring a separate $17.6 billion military aid package to Israel to a House vote. .

On NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, Johnson was asked whether his plan to help Israel was a ploy to sabotage the Senate’s compromise deal on the border. He was also asked if he was simply following Trump’s orders and Trump was “giving orders.”

“Of course not,” said the speaker. “He doesn’t call the shots, I call the House of Representatives—that’s our responsibility.”

Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic minority leader in the House of Representatives, mocked Republicans in an interview on ABC’s Sunday show this week, calling them “subsidiaries of Donald Trump.”

With the number of migrants showing up at the border remaining high and a presidential election year approaching, immigration is expected to continue to cause unrest on both sides of the political aisle.

On Sunday, Nikki Haley, Trump’s only remaining rival in the race for the Republican nomination, accused Trump in an interview with CNN of playing “political games” with border officials in his attempt to derail the Senate deal.