Staff Reports
To get more money for Ukraine, President Joe Biden and his administration have to find a way to work with House Republicans on problems related to the border. Politico talked to four people who were involved in the talks and said that the White House is thinking about giving in on asylum reform to make House Republicans happy and get their backing for the funding package.
At first, the White House proposed a funding package worth more than $105 billion. It included plans for Ukraine, Israel, and border problems. To this, the Republicans in the House came up with their own separate plan that focused on helping Israel and cutting costs at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
Biden May Give Republicans Serious Wins On The Border In Exchange For Ukraine Funding: REPORThttps://t.co/grxJ0JbCzv
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) November 3, 2023
In order to move forward and get the votes they need, the White House and the Department of Homeland Security have looked into the chance of putting in place reforms to asylum laws that would please House Republicans. A former government worker who knows about the talks says that this willingness to consider asylum change is a risky move, both politically and practically.
With a vote of 226 to 196, House Republicans have already passed their plan, which would give money to the Department of Defense to replace weapons that were given to Israel during the war with Hamas. The money for the bill would come from cutting the IRS's budget.
But Democrats might not like the suggested changes to asylum laws because they want to see progress on other issues like the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. People might criticize the White House if they go ahead with the plan to change how protection is handled without addressing these other issues.
At the same time, mayors of big US cities like Chicago, Denver, Houston, and Los Angeles met with Tom Perez, who runs the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, to ask for more money to help deal with the ongoing migrant problem. Leading New York City Mayor Eric Adams, these Democratic mayors asked for a "urgent" meeting with President Biden and said they would be happy to go to D.C. to talk about how the influx of migrants has made their towns lack resources.
This shows that people from all political parties, Congress, the White House, and mayors of big towns are all worried about how to handle migration effectively. They think that resources and policy changes are needed. But finding common ground and laying out detailed policy changes are still hard parts of the talks that are still going on.
