Ukraine-border funding bill will get Senate vote next week

The long-awaited text of a supplemental spending bill that would fund aid for Ukraine and Israel as well as border security will be released in the coming days and voted on next week, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) announced Thursday.

“We plan to post the full text of the national security supplemental as early as tomorrow, no later than Sunday,” Schumer said on the Senate Floor, adding that he would file cloture on the motion one day later with a vote by the full chamber no later than Wednesday.

“There’s no longer a no-vote day [next week],” Schumer emphasized. “While we’re respectful of members’ schedules and try to limit inconveniences, these challenges at the border and in Ukraine and the Middle East are just too great.”

A $106 billion supplemental package was floated by President Biden last October that included $61.4 billion in military aid to Ukraine and $14.3 billion for Israel, as well as $13.6 billion for US border enforcement.

At least 60 votes are needed for it to clear the Senate filibuster, forcing the House to then consider the legislation before sending it to Biden’s desk.

The White House warned in December that funding to Ukraine was in danger of running out by year’s end, but Kyiv president Volodymyr Zelensky later told congressional leaders that military funds would not be depleted until sometime this month.

Schumer and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) have firmly supported the Ukraine funding, with the latter noting on Thursday that the European Union had approved another $54 billion for Kyiv’s war effort against Russia this week.

But both have also advocated for the Senate to take up immigration reforms as the US faces record-breaking numbers of illegal migrant crossings and spiking rates of human and drug trafficking on the southern border.

However, hardline Senate Republicans have dismissed the legislation, blaming the Biden administration’s policy changes for the alarming stats and pointing to leaked provisions that allow for more than 1 million migrants to enter the US illegally per year.

“The number should be zero,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said of the reported details Wednesday in a fiery speech on that chamber’s floor, during which he called on Biden to make use of his executive authority to close the border.

Other potential solutions would still grant tens of thousands of migrants humanitarian parole at designated airports, as well as pay for legal counsel provided to unaccompanied migrant children under the age of 13 and other migrants deemed mentally incompetent.

It would also increase the number of immigrant worker visas to 50,000 per year and give additional work visas to spouses and children of H-1B holders and other migrants within 180 days of their release into the US by Customs and Border Protection.

Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) has caught flak from conservative colleagues for helping to negotiate the legislation with Sens. Chris Murphy. (D-Conn.) and Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) — but has not confirmed the accuracy of any leaked provisions.

Other Republicans have blamed McConnell for taking away their “leverage” by tying the border security provisions to the national security provisions for Ukraine and Israel, which is still fighting its war against Hamas terrorists.

Talks also appeared to stall after former President Donald Trump weighed in on the deal, calling it “a horrible open border betrayal of America.”

On Wednesday, House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) told reporters if any of the leaked contents were accurate the Senate bill would be “dead on arrival” in the lower chamber, which is already considering impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.