Senators reach deal to restrict illegal border crossings but it appears "dead on arrival" in House

A bipartisan group of senators reached a deal on Friday that they are proposing as a solution to the border security part of the supplemental spending bill that would also include security assistance to Israel, Taiwan and Ukraine.

The text of the bill has not been released, but a “source familiar with the negotiations,” according to the Washington Examiner and other media organizations, largely confirms what was reported weeks ago about the senate negotiations. A mandatory shut down of the border, meaning that the Department of Homeland Security would be required to turn away nearly all migrants attempting to cross the border, will only occur once the average daily number of encounters with migrants hits 5,000 per day over the course of a week, or reaches 8,500 in a single day.

The senate deal was negotiated by Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), James Lankford (R-Ok.), and Chris Murphy (D-Ct.). It would grant the Biden administration a new expulsion authority if the encounters exceed 4,000 a day. It also is said to require mandatory detention of all single adults, and that migrants caught twice during this so-called “shut down” phase, would face a one-year ban from entering the U.S.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has already said in a letter obtained by the Washington Examiner this week that “if rumors about the contents of the draft proposal are true, it would have been dead on arrival in the House anyway.”

He called again for the White House and Senate negotiators to adopt the “transformative corrections” included in H.R. 2, the immigration and border security bill the House passed last year. Speaker Johnson also stated his plan to move forward with articles  of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas when the House returns next week.