Former President Trump is likely to make it exceedingly difficult for Republicans on Capitol Hill to negotiate a deal with the White House on border security.
Trump is far and away the GOP presidential front-runner, and his strength with House Republicans just keeps getting stronger. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) offered his endorsement Tuesday.
The border is Trump’s signature issue, and GOP strategists are hard-pressed to see him blessing a deal with the White House during primary season.
“I don’t think [President Biden] can agree to deal that Trump would be satisfied with, so I think the parties are at loggerheads,” said Brian Darling, a GOP strategist and former Senate aide.
“It’s going to be very hard to cut a deal under the current circumstances without Trump campaigning against Congress and campaigning against Republicans who cut the deal,” he said.
“Any deal that’s cut by Congress, Trump will likely campaign against because it’s not going to be anything close to what he’s been talking about on the campaign trail.”
Reaching a deal is critical not only to President Biden but also to Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and other key figures, because a border deal could unlock additional aid to Ukraine and Israel.
But even without Trump’s involvement, Democrats and Republicans in Congress look far, far apart.
Schumer has declared the border security bill that House Republicans passed in May, the Secure our Border Act, a “total non-starter,” though Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) warned Schumer bluntly on Nov. 30 that he could only pass Ukraine funding if the House GOP’s border bill was attached to it.
Conservative immigration experts warn that Johnson, who is only a couple of months into his leadership job, will face strong political blowback if he supports a border security deal that Trump later bashes as soft.
“There’s nothing they’re going to come up with that will actually solve the border problem because the root cause is sitting in the Oval Office,” said Mark Krikorian, the executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, referring to Biden.
“If Republicans agree to something that’s less than H.R. 2 … do they end up co-owning the border disaster? If it continues, the administration gets to say, ‘Look, we reached a deal with Republicans,’” he said. “The danger for Republicans is they let Biden off the hook by agreeing to something.”
Senate negotiators met Tuesday afternoon with Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for 90 minutes but failed to achieve a breakthrough.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) expressed frustration with Republicans after the meeting for not yielding more ground. He told reporters that Republicans need to accept what Democrats have already offered.
But GOP strategists warn that any deal reached with the Biden administration and Senate Democrats could become an issue in this year’s Republican primaries, putting GOP lawmakers who vote for it on the defensive.
“If [Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.)] and [Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.)] are the face of the deal, that bodes ill for Republican voters accepting the deal because they’re sort of bogeyman for a lot of conservatives on the immigration issue,” Krikorian said, referring to two Republican senators close to the talks.
Krikorian said supporting a bad border security deal could come back to haunt Republicans.
A Republican strategist who requested anonymity to discuss the politically sensitive talks said Republicans who vote for a weak border deal might get a boost in the general election but would likely face attack in a primary.
“It may help them in the general election, but if anybody’s got a primary, it’s a tough one,” the source said.
Jim McLaughlin, a Republican pollster who works for Trump, dismissed the possibility of Biden signing off on a deal to significantly reduce the flow of migrants across the southern border.
“Joe Biden could have a big win anytime he wants on the issue of immigration because basically Donald Trump solved the problem with no help from Congress,” he said. “I’m very skeptical of what they’ll come up with.
“This White House has no will to solve the immigration problem,” he said. “We have all these laws on the books right now to solve immigration. They’re not being enforced, they’re not being carried out. You have Home Security basically undermining states like Texas.”
McLaughlin expressed doubt that Mayorkas and Senate Democrats would agree to any deal that would get Trump’s support.
“I doubt it,” he said. “It’s not where the Democratic Party is right now. The Democratic Party has become the open borders party, which is not where the American people are.”
Some Senate Republican aides, however, think an emergency supplemental package could pass Congress even if Trump comes out against it, arguing that many Republicans support funding the war in Ukraine and would like to see some progress on tightening the border even if it falls short of the reforms passed by the House.
One aide pointed out that Trump urged Congress to do something about the border in a recent post on Truth Social.
“It’s becoming more and more obvious to me why the ‘Crazed’ Democrats are allowing millions and millions of totally unvetted migrants into our once great Country. IT’S SO THEY CAN VOTE,” Trump wrote. “Republicans better wake up and do something, before it is too late. Are you listening Mitch McConnell?”
Darling, the GOP strategist and former Senate aide, predicted that if a border security deal emerges from the Senate, it will divide the Republican Party.
“Unfortunately, I think there are many within the caucus in the House and Senate that will want to cut a deal just because they really want to get the Ukraine funding,” he said. “There is going to be a strong caucus within the [Republican] caucus that is going to be opposed to a deal, but I don’t know if it’s going to be enough” to defeat it.
“You’re going to see a circumstance where Trump is going to be campaigning against Republicans in Washington. That helps him. It shows he’s an outsider pushing hard against the establishment in Washington, D.C.,” he added.
If a package passes the Senate, Johnson will face a tough decision about whether to put it on the floor and take the heat from Trump-aligned House conservatives.
Johnson and 60 other House Republicans are scheduled to visit the border at Eagle Pass, Texas, on Wednesday.
The Speaker urged Biden in a Dec. 21 letter to end the practice of broadly paroling migrants. He called for granting parole only on a case-by-case basis and reinstating an agreement with Mexico to keep migrants in that country while they pursue asylum.