Republicans Agonize Over Supporting Bipartisan Border Bill They Insisted On

A bipartisan bill to address the surge of migrants at the southern border is sowing discord within the Senate GOP as Trump urges them to kill it.

Senate Republicans are in deep distress over whether to support a plan to fix the migrant crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border that includes key concessions they had demanded from Democrats months ago in exchange for approving new U.S. aid to Ukraine.

The bipartisan legislation is expected to be unveiled as early as Friday, giving senators time to review the text before a planned procedural vote next week. But with former President Donald Trump, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and much of the right whipping opposition to the bill before it has even been unveiled, its future in the Senate appears to be in serious jeopardy.

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Republicans have for years called on President Joe Biden to address the crisis on the border, insisting that the elevated flow of migrants is an urgent national security threat and calling for legislation to address it. But with an agreement in sight after four months of negotiations, many in the GOP now say that Congress doesn’t need to pass new legislation and that Biden ought to simply take executive action to fix it. Some have openly admitted they don’t want to give Biden a victory ahead of the November presidential election by letting him take off the table an issue on which he rates poorly among the electorate.