Senate Democrats on Thursday refiled a previously failed bipartisan border security bill in a bid to force Republicans to again oppose legislation they helped craft just months before the November election.
But the Republican co-author of the measure will vote down the proposal this go-around and disparaged what he called a “nonserious” attempt to score political points off the illegal immigration crisis at the southern border.
“It’s just a messaging piece,” Sen. James Lankford (R-OK), the lead GOP negotiator on immigration, said. “This is trying to poke Republicans in the eye rather than try to solve the problem.”
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), who for months worked with Lankford and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) to craft the legislation before conservatives ultimately turned against the deal, told the Washington Examiner that the intent of holding another vote will be to “give Republicans another shot to do the right thing.”
“They have not expressed any interest in coming back to the table,” Murphy said. “They’ve got to make a political decision about whether they care more about the border or Donald Trump’s reelection efforts.”
Lankford rejected those accusations, telling the Washington Examiner there’s been “no approach or no attempt to try to change” the proposal on the part of Murphy or any other Democrat since it first failed in February.
“What I got was, ‘We’re dropping this bill — you might have heard we’re dropping the bill,’” Lankford said recalling a recent exchange with Murphy. “No disdain for Chris, but there’s not been outreach to try to get something and say, ‘We couldn’t get the last one through. How do we actually get the next one through?’ There’s been no interchange like that.”
Lankford was one of four Senate Republicans who previously voted for its passage. This time around, Republicans across the board have assailed what they consider a political stunt while Democrats try to flip the script on a policy that’s a top election-year issue in polling with voters.
The bill, which was previously attached to a foreign aid package, would have provided roughly $20 billion for border security, expanded expulsion authority, bolstered asylum standards, and limited catch-and-release practices. Pressure from Republicans and vulnerable Senate Democrats has mounted on President Joe Biden to take more aggressive executive action to clamp down on the surge of illegal crossings.
It’s unclear when Senate Democrats will hold another vote on the bipartisan deal.
Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) appears inclined to take up the doomed endeavor in the near future, as early as the coming weeks. Thursday marked 100 days since it failed the first time, which Schumer spotlighted in a speech on the Senate floor. He accused Republicans of being the ones playing politics with the border by opposing the measure.
“The only way we fix the border long term is through bipartisan legislation, like the one we had in the Senate three months ago,” Schumer said. “But as we all know, Donald Trump swooped in and told his MAGA supporters to kill the bill.”
Lankford holds little hope for accomplishing anything on the subject before Election Day due to a general lack of “enthusiasm.” He criticized his own party by drawing parallels between Democrats rehashing the bipartisan deal to Senate Republicans trying to take up the House’s conservative border bill known as H.R. 2, both of which he emphasized were futile actions.
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Lankford further criticized the politics behind some Democrats not wanting to anger their base and some in the GOP not wanting to give Biden an election-year policy win.
“Everybody in America sees this,” he said.
