Top Dem in immigration talks says Republicans are ignoring border chaos to help Trump

Transcript

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

The Senate is supposed to vote this week on a massive new border security and foreign aid package. It's budgeted at more than $118 billion. If passed, the measure would result in the most significant change to American immigration law in decades. The bill includes funding to beef up the infrastructure for handling asylum claims and for barriers, and it also includes humanitarian aid for Ukraine, Israel and the Palestinian territories. But its passage is far from assured. Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut was the Democrat's lead negotiator on the deal, and he is with us now to tell us more about the bill and where things stand. Good morning, Senator.

CHRIS MURPHY: Good morning.

MARTIN: So just to remind people, support for Ukraine, Israel and humanitarian assistance in Gaza has been stalled for months because Republicans have been saying the crisis at the border is a higher priority for them, and they want tougher measures to secure the border. As briefly as you can, how would this bill address what is happening on the southern border?

MURPHY: Well, Americans want us to come together and fix the southern border. They see 10,000 people crossing many days. They know that the country can't handle that kind of influx on a daily basis. They see migrants piling up on the streets and homeless shelters. They know that is a crisis that governors and mayors need help with. This bill does that. This bill would allow the president to shut down parts of the border when too many people are crossing on a daily basis. It makes a fundamental reform to the asylum process. Right now, it takes often 10 years to process an asylum claim. That's way too long, especially when many of those people have their asylum claims rejected in the end. That time frame would be shortened under this bill to six months. And then the bill increases legal immigration pathways. You can't fix the border if you don't provide more people other ways to get to the United States. So over the next five years, it would open up about 250,000 new visas, both family visas and work visas, to come to the United States. If passed, as you referenced, it would be the most significant bipartisan border reform in 40 years, and it is what the American people want. They don't want this issue to be used as a permanent political cudgel. They want us to solve the problem. Those would be some of the changes in the bill that would allow the president to get the border under control.

MARTIN: So I think a lot of people know that former President Donald Trump is pushing Republicans to oppose it. Some Senate Republicans have come out against it. But let's talk about members of your own party. Like, New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez called it unacceptable. He said if this bill had come forward under Trump, Democrats would be outraged. What do you say to members of your own party, so who are saying, look, this is the opposite of what President Biden says he stood for when he ran for office?

MURPHY: Yeah, I know Washington is kind of unfamiliar with an old-fashioned compromise that involves some Democrats voting no and some Republicans voting no, but that's what we've done here. We are taking an issue that has long divided America and finding middle ground. But the truth of the matter is, most all Democrats are going to vote for this bill. There will be a handful of Democrats that will vote no, and I accept that. The problem is right now it looks as if most Republicans are going to vote against it as well, and the only way we can get this passed in the Senate is if you have a majority of Democrats and a majority of Republicans supporting it. And right now, most Republicans are prepared to listen to Donald Trump, who says he wants chaos to continue at the border because that will help him politically. I don't think Republicans are looking at this bill on the merits. I think they are simply looking at it as something that would be politically unhelpful to their presidential candidate if it passes. Democrats who are voting for it or against it I think are legitimately reviewing the bill on the merits.

MARTIN: So as you well know - I think many people may know this, that House Speaker Mike Johnson says that he's already declared it sort of dead on arrival. So what options do you have except to basically run on it yourselves? Basically, you as Democrats make it a voting issue and say that we're the party that wants to govern and the other party doesn't. Do you have any other options, really?

MURPHY: Well, I mean, let's go back to last fall. We were trying to pass Ukraine aid, and Republicans told us that they were not going to support Ukraine aid unless we passed bipartisan border reform. We were all there. We all have the receipts. And we did exactly what Republicans told us to do. We got a bipartisan border reform bill, a historic one. And now those same Republicans are saying that they are going to oppose the bill that they asked for because Donald Trump wants chaos at the border. I think that is a terrible outcome for the country. I think it makes us weaker. I think it makes our border less secure. But it's also a terrible political decision by Republicans because this country will see it for what it is, a decision to keep the country unsafe just because Donald Trump benefits from chaos. And I do think that story is going to be a big part of this election if Republicans choose that path. There's still an opportunity. They can still work with us and get this bill passed through the Senate. They've got to make that decision in the next 24 to 48 hours.

MARTIN: There are no restrictions on the $14.1 billion in security assistance to Israel, but there is a ban on distributing aid to the United Nations' main relief agency in Gaza. How would the U.S. deliver aid to Palestinians in need? I mean, I think the need is clear to people who are paying attention.

MURPHY: Well, there is $10 billion in aid to Gaza in this bill. We did not cut the amount that the president requested. Listen, clearly, UNRWA has to get its house in order. And so under this bill, we are not sending money to that particular agency. But there are many other groups, like the Red Crescent, that are operating effectively inside Gaza, and we will get money to people who need it. But keeping money from UNRWA was a condition of Republicans to support the humanitarian funding in this bill. And as I said, it was a compromise, a messy compromise, a difficult compromise. But $10 billion, exactly what the president asked for, for humanitarian relief in Gaza remains in this bill. That's really important.

MARTIN: And on Ukraine, you've repeatedly made the case that this is a priority - this should be a priority for the United States, to assist Ukraine in resisting the Russian invasion. Now, you've set aside $60.1 billion in military assistance for Ukraine. It seems that Americans are growing weary of this war, and you see that there's kind of growing opposition, particularly on the Republican side. How do you make the case that this remains critical?

MURPHY: Well, ultimately, we are making a decision about the post-World War II order in which big nations don't get to expand their borders by invading smaller nations. The United States has greatly benefited from that order, that kind of global stability. But it is also true that history repeats itself. And if Putin wins in Ukraine, there is a real potential that he moves beyond Ukraine into a NATO country, and then it's U.S. men and women that are in Europe fighting and dying, two nuclear powers at war against each other. This is just a very important preventative step to stop the United States from getting dragged into an absolutely disastrous war, a pretty cheap investment in our security and global security. And I think most Americans agree with that.

MARTIN: That is Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut. Senator, thank you so much for your time.

MURPHY: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.