A bipartisan group of lawmakers in Congress is on the verge of striking a deal with the Biden administration that would enact sweeping new border controls, including the authority to pause asylum processing during spikes in migrant crossings, three people familiar with the talks told CBS News.
After weeks of closed-door negotiations, the White House and a trio of senators could unveil an agreement as early as this week, the sources said, requesting anonymity due to the private nature of the conversations. The bill is designed to reduce the unprecedented levels of illegal crossings recorded along the southern border in the past three years.
While GOP Sen. James Lankford, Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy and independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema are close to finalizing the compromise with the White House, any bipartisan immigration proposal would face an uphill battle in the House, where Speaker Mike Johnson and other conservative lawmakers have pushed for even stricter changes to the asylum system.
Divisions among Republican lawmakers over whether to support a border deal with Mr. Biden have also intensified after former President Donald Trump came out against it. At a rally in Las Vegas on Saturday, Trump said he would “rather have no bill than a bad bill.”
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Eagle Pass, Texas — A bipartisan group of lawmakers in Congress is on the verge of striking a deal with the Biden administration that would enact sweeping new border controls, including the authority to pause asylum processing during spikes in migrant crossings, three people familiar with the talks told CBS News.
The agreement is expected to give the executive branch a new legal authority to effectively suspend asylum in between official ports of entry when migrant crossings surpass certain thresholds.
That would affect remote areas in Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas where migrants regularly cross into the U.S. illegally to surrender themselves to overtaxed federal immigration officials who often release them because they don’t have the resources to screen everyone for asylum.
On Friday, Mr. Biden said he would use the new powers “the day I sign the bill into law,” calling the emerging deal the “toughest and fairest set of reforms to secure the border we’ve ever had in our country.”
Those who pass their initial humanitarian protection screenings, including when the “shutdown” authority is in place, would generally be released pending a full review of their cases with immediate eligibility to work in the U.S., a change that would likely be welcomed by Democratic officials in communities struggling to house migrants relying on local services.
The deal is not expected to shut down Biden administration parole programs that allow U.S.-based individuals to sponsor the entry of certain Latin American migrants and Ukrainians, the sources familiar with the talks said.
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