Joe Biden finds himself in a predicament where he has no other choice but to reward his political adversaries while infuriating his allies in order to achieve his goals. That’s a strange place to be in before an election year.
Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, visited Washington this week to urge Congress to provide further funding for US military assistance.
At the conclusion, Mr. Biden and the Senate Democrats discussed how far they would go to grant his request and how enraged they would be to alienate members of their own party in the process.
Republicans are imposing start-and-end immigration-related conditions on additional $100 billion (£82 billion) in aid to Ukraine, which is part of a larger package that also includes backing for Israel and Taiwan.
This entails not simply increasing funding for border security but also making substantial adjustments to the procedures followed by undocumented migrants seeking asylum protections at the US-Mexico border.
Raising the bar for migrants to be eligible for asylum consideration in the US and facilitating the deportation of undocumented immigrants without a hearing during spikes in border crossings are two of the policies being considered.
It has been claimed that the Biden administration wishes to maintain the president’s discretion to grant exceptions to these regulations.
Regarding potential hard-line Republican possibilities, the White House did not comment. But it’s evident how incensed some left-leaning Democrats would be if Mr. Biden consented to these modifications.
funding impasse casts a cloud on Zelensky’s visit to Washington. • If US funding stops, Ukraine will suffer.
Democratic Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey remarked, “I thought I entered a time machine back to the Trump era,” at a Congressional Hispanic Caucus rally on the steps of the US Capitol.
“I could not comprehend how a Democratic president who vehemently countered Trump’s policies as a candidate is seriously putting forward the most Trumpian anti-immigrant proposal.”
Other lawmakers voiced indignation that liberal lawmakers and politicians of Hispanic descent were excluded from the closed-door discussions and denounced the negotiations as a Republican ploy.
They stated that in exchange for a one-time foreign aid package, the Biden administration would never think about compromising on other liberal issues like civil rights, education, or the freedom to practise abortion.
They questioned why immigration was any different.
Surveys of public opinion offer a hint. 64% of Americans disapproved of Mr. Biden’s handling of border security, according to a recent Wall Street Journal survey, despite the fact that Democrats hold majorities on numerous political objectives.
Additionally, respondents said that Donald Trump, not Joe Biden, was “best able” to secure the border by a margin of 54% to 24%.
- HEAR: Beto O’Rourke Discusses the US Immigration Issue
Beto O’Rourke, a former congressional representative for El Paso, Texas, who unsuccessfully sought the Democratic Party’s candidature in 2019, tells BBC Americast that Mr Biden needs to take back the moral high ground in the immigration discussion.
He requests that the president draw attention to what he claims to be the harshness of the Trump-era laws that Republicans seek to pass into law.
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Watch: Zelensky encounters impasse in Washington, D.C.
“We have not heard that recently from Joe Biden,” stated the senator. And his current policies don’t show that at all. However, I think he’ll make the proper decision.”
Mr. O’Rourke has personal experience with how difficult immigration can be for Democrats.
In an attempt to unseat Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott last year, he focused his campaign on gun control and abortion rights, among other things. With a laser-like focus on immigration, the governor won by over 11%.
“If the president and his administration are not able to offer a comprehensive vision and strategy and demonstrate that they have control over the challenges on the border, it opens the field to Donald Trump on a national level,” Mr O’Rourke stated.
The House of Representatives has already adjourned for the winter break, but senators will return to Washington the next week in an attempt to finalise an agreement that includes immigration reform and aid to Ukraine.
It’s a sign of things to come for the administration, a chance to accomplish a foreign policy objective and maybe even fix a political shortcoming that has plagued Mr. Biden.
But there’s a good chance he’ll offend liberal allies whose trust in the president has been damaged by the prolonged conflict between Israel and Gaza and by the compromises made during earlier this year’s budget negotiations.
Congressman Luis Gutierrez of Illinois stated, “For Biden, we’re invisible,” on Wednesday in the Capitol.
“They carry out no outreach. They don’t offer consultation services. And that would have electoral ramifications, he went on.
He predicted that “Latinos won’t turn out to vote.” “And our efforts to knock on their doors to canvass and to get them out to vote will only become increasingly more difficult.”
The president is in a difficult situation. What occurs the following week will play a part in how – or if – he manages to escape.
