Top GOP negotiator: Border deal may land this week

Republicans’ top negotiator on a potential border and immigration deal that could unlock tens of billions in aid for Ukraine said on Sunday that lawmakers could release the text of an agreement as soon as this week.

Sen. James Lankford’s (R-Okla.) optimistic remarks are the latest sign that his discussions with Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) and Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) could bear fruit after several days of urgent talks in Washington last week and months of behind-the-scenes discussions. The trio and the Biden administration are honing in on an agreement that could raise the standard for claiming asylum and potentially deliver new expulsion and enforcement authorities to the administration. It would also provide significant new resources for border adjudication and staffing.

“Text hopefully this week, to be able to get that out. Everybody will have time to be able to read and go through it. No one's going to be jammed in this process,” Lankford said on "Fox News Sunday." “This agreement has to work. Everyone's counting on this actually working.”

Lankford’s hopes of landing complicated border text this week comes in tandem with Sinema and Murphy’s goal of briefing the rest of the Senate on their discussions early this week as the Senate returns from a lengthy recess. Republicans staked out a position in the fall that they will not send more money to Ukraine without big policy changes to restrict migrant flows over the southern border, shaking Congress’s commitment to Ukraine and resulting in several blown efforts to send more money to the country.

But the three senators have been basically negotiating nonstop for several weeks. And the Senate comes back into town Monday facing a government shutdown deadline that will quickly consume Washington, making the next few days critical for at least cementing a framework for President Joe Biden’s $106 billion supplemental spending request for Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and the border.

Still, there are huge questions about whether a deal can even become law. Sinema spoke to Speaker Mike Johnson on Friday, but Johnson said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that he has not been briefed on the details of the senators’ discussions.

He declined in that appearance to commit to putting any potential agreement to a vote, calling it a “hypothetical question,” though he did say House Republicans do “want a deal.”

Lankford said he welcomed Johnson’s involvement and indicated the House will face a big decision if the Senate is able to pass legislation and send it to them. Johnson wants the House-passed border and immigration bill containing restrictions that Democrats do not support, but Lankford acknowledged with a Democratic White House and Senate, negotiators need to “thread that needle.”

“If we can pass this in the days ahead in the Senate and send it over the House, the House can work to improve it or the House can take a serious look at it and say look, ‘this makes real progress on the border, let's go get this, bank this and then keep going for more,’” Lankford said.

Still, it’s not totally clear there’s even a framework agreement yet. Late Friday as they wrapped up another day of meetings, Murphy and Sinema said there were still issues to work out and were unsure whether they’d be able to roll out an agreement this week. After making big strides on raising the credible fear standard for claiming asylum, negotiators struggled to come to agreement on interior immigration enforcement, the president’s parole authority and new expulsion provisions.

And any deal will draw jeers from both the left and right. Progressives are already steaming about considering permanent policy changes for emergency spending and at least some conservatives are unlikely to support any bill that contains new spending for Ukraine.

That means Lankford, Sinema and Murphy have to produce legislation that can get 60 votes in the Senate, a bipartisan majority in the House and a presidential signature. Even if no one thinks it's perfect.

“The biggest thing we can do is actually try to have mandates in this that we actually enforce the border and to be able to take on the issue of how we actually handle asylum,” Lankford said. “It does not get better by doing nothing. It gets better by doing something. Congress has to pass something.”