Schumer bedeviled by Democratic divisions over Israel, immigration

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is facing growing divisions within his conference on two thorny issues — Israel and immigration.

A number of Democrats want to add conditions to U.S. military aid to Israel, while on immigration, Schumer is dealing with a debate over how far to go in reforming immigration law to get a bipartisan deal on an emergency foreign aid package. The immigration issue is connected to unlocking aid to Ukraine.

Schumer has kept his conference impressively unified during his first three years as majority leader, but that unity is now being tested like never before amid a backlash from the party’s base over civilian casualties in Gaza and the prospect of thousands of migrants being denied asylum requests along the Southern border.  

The highest ranking Jewish congressional leader in American history, Schumer is a staunch supporter of Israel, but he isn’t ruling out the prospect of adding conditions to U.S. military aid to pressure Israel to do more to minimize civilian deaths.  

He’s giving liberals in his conference a chance to work on a package of proposed conditions for U.S. military aid, even though Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) dismissed the idea as “ridiculous,” and the Biden administration is signaling it does not favor making U.S. military aid to one of its closest allies conditional.  

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), who says he’s “open” to attaching conditions on aid to Israel, said a group of Democratic colleagues are working “earnestly” on putting together such a proposal.  

“It doesn’t sound super controversial to me to require of Israel what we require of every other ally, but I haven’t endorsed any particular proposal,” he said Thursday. “I’ve said I’m open to it. I know some of my colleagues are working more earnestly on it.”  

Murphy told CNN in a recent interview that “the level of civilian harm inside Gaza has been unacceptable and is unsustainable.” 

Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) said Thursday that he is also waiting to see what his progressive colleagues propose. 

“I want to make sure that we have a smart funding initiative that is being thoughtful, that understands that Israel has a right to defend itself, but with the concern that most around the world share, including Pope Francis, associated with the number of civilians that have been killed,” he said. “We’ll see what they put together and take a look at it.”  

But other Senate Democrats, notably Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Ben Cardin (D-Md.), are pushing back against calls to make aid to Israel conditional on Israel Defense Forces minimizing civilian casualties. 

“I don’t believe conditionality of the aid package would be an effective way” to minimize civilian casualties, Cardin argued.  

Cardin said he’s concerned that some progressives are being “misled” by propaganda being circulated by allies of Hamas in an effort to tie Israel’s hands militarily.

“We’re proud of the progressive movement, we’re proud of what we’ve done to help underserved communities, communities that are minorities being discriminated against, women — the whole gamut — we don’t want them to be misled by the images they see that are being put out to try to destroy the Jewish state,” he said.  

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner (D-Va.) also rejected the idea of adding conditions on military aid to Israel.  

“I’m not in favor of formal conditions,” he said, though he endorsed “continuing to urge Israel to minimize loss of innocent lives” and “releasing funds to the Palestinian authority” to provide humanitarian relief.  

Schumer has so far stayed neutral in the brewing debate within his conference, telling reporters that he wants to further discuss the issue with colleagues and senior administration officials.  

“There are different views on that, and we’re going to have a discussion with the caucus and the administration,” he said.  

A Senate Democratic aide noted that senior Biden administration officials now say that President Biden won’t support restricting aid to Israel in an effort to minimize civilian deaths. 

Growing liberal angst over bipartisan Senate negotiations regarding immigration and asylum policy is something else that Schumer has to manage as he tries to put together a deal to pass a $100 billion emergency foreign aid package.  

Senate Republicans have demanded changes to immigration and asylum policy to cut down on the flow of migrants across the U.S.-Mexico border and say they are making progress in talks with Murphy and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.).  

Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) and nine other Democratic senators circulated a statement this week warning their colleagues not to give away too much to get funding for Israel and Ukraine. They demanded that Republicans make concessions on creating new pathways for migrants to become permanent residents and citizens.  

Padilla told The Hill on Thursday that he is concerned about the direction of the talks.  

“In most negotiations, there’s some give and there’s some take. I’ve heard a whole lot of ‘give’ but not a whole lot of benefit to Democrat priorities,” he said.  

Ten Democratic senators declared in a joint statement that “any proposal considering permanent changes to our asylum and immigration system needs to include a clear path to legalization for long-standing undocumented immigrants.” 

Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (Ill.) and Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Luján, Edward Markey (D-Mass.), Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) signed the statement. 

Murphy said he knows he has a short leash in the border security talks and that many Democrats don’t want to implement tougher standards for asylum or crack down on humane parole without making progress on their own immigration-related priorities. 

Senators had hoped to get a deal on border security this week, but Murphy conceded “that didn’t work out.”  

Murphy said Padilla’s concerns are “representative of a lot of people in the Democratic caucus in the House and the Senate.” 

“The caucus decided long ago that if you’re going to do immigration reform, you’ve got to do it in a balanced way,” he said.