US House Begins Appropriations Vote, Weighing Support for Ukraine Against Stricter Border Policies

Jose Luis Gonzalez | Credit: REUTERS

United States Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced that the vote on President Joe Biden’s supplemental appropriations request for billions in Ukraine and Israel assistance would occur as soon as the week of Dec. 4. The vote combines the highly divisive issue of immigration policy — specifically regarding migrants seeking asylum in the United States— with the less-partisan issue of funding for Ukraine and Israel. 

Whereas “restricting the asylum system is a top priority for Republicans,” according to Politico, the issue of funding for the United States’s wartime allies is of equal importance to both Democrats and Republicans in the House. 

Critics have protested the conjunction of wartime assistance in Ukraine and the Middle East being voted on in the same package as immigration reform at the United States’s southern border. Rep. Raúl Grijalva, an Arizona Democrat, called the Ukraine-border amalgamation “an aberration.” Another vocal critic is Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, who said, “I think this is a ridiculous position to put us in.” He added, “Holding Israel aid and Ukraine aid hostage to solving a complicated domestic issue is really unfortunate.” 

Ukrainians arrive in Tijuana attempting to enter the US. REUTERS/Jorge Duenes

While the majority of asylum seekers come from South America, with more than 31,000 Venezuelans crossing into the United States in August, it is important to note that there is an increasing number of migrants from countries outside of Latin America. After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, roughly 1,000 Ukrainians a day flew to Tijuana on tourist visas, desperate to reach U.S soil. As the New York Times reports, an unprecedented number of Chinese migrants also crossed the southern border in 2023. 

GOP representatives seek to reform three key issues with the Biden administration’s current border policy, with the first being the conditions under which migrants can apply to enter the country under “asylum seeking” standards. 

The current U.S. standards require that migrants applying for asylum demonstrate to an immigration judge a “significant fear” of death, persecution, or torture if they are returned to their country of origin. The proposed change would dissolve “credible fear” as a standard for asylum seekers and significantly narrow the definition of who is eligible for safe haven.

The second desired change will reform the ability for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to determine whether a migrant is eligible for advance parole — the system which grants temporary entry under special circumstances. Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican with influence over his party’s immigration outlook in the Senate, told The Intercept that “ending Biden’s special designation of parole for migrants from Cuba, Venezuela, Haiti, and Nicaraguans is a priority for GOP negotiators.”

Third, Congress will decide whether or not immigrants have to seek asylum in another country, before they can attempt to seek asylum in the United States. The Safe Third Country agreements that the Trump administration expanded in 2020 force immigrants to demonstrate that they first sought asylum somewhere else on their journey to the United States.

Historically, countries such as Guatemala, El Salvador or Honduras constituted “Safe Third Countries” under the Trump administration. However, the Biden administration suspended their status in 2021. 

Also included in the president’s supplemental request is funding for 1,600 asylum officers “to increase by 2.5 times the number of personnel that interview and adjudicate claims for asylum and facilitate timely decisions,” and 1,300 border patrol agents to detain and expedite the processing of asylum-seekers.

At the heart of the immigration debate is a program created by the Trump administration called the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), also known as the “Remain in Mexico” program. The program manages what the administration saw as an alarming rise in asylum seekers at the southern U.S. border. 

On Feb. 6, the Mexican government stated that it would be opposed to the MPP program without stating a reason for its opposition. The Fundación para la Justicia, a political advocacy group in Mexico, stated that the act “violates the rights of migrants by allowing the application of US laws in Mexican territory.”

A survey conducted by Human Rights First, a non-governmental organization in the United States, interviewed asylum seekers who were deported in Tijuana, Ciudad Juárez, Nuevo Laredo, and Matamoros. The interviewees represented more than a quarter of those displaced under the Biden Administration’s reimplementation of the Remain in Mexico program. The study found that “of those interviewed, 41 percent (1,109 people) reported violent attacks in Mexico, including kidnapping, rape, assault, and other violence.”

On the side of the United States, advocates, including legislators, have noted the recent surge of migrants has put unbridled strain on southern states. In an injunction on Aug. 13, 2021, Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk said that rescinding the MPP program not only violated administrative law but also violated immigration law. According to the Texas Tribune, “he also agreed with Texas and Missouri, which argued that releasing migrants into the U.S. puts a burden on states because the migrants use state services such as issuing drivers licenses, educating migrant children and providing hospital care.”

Senate Republicans only agreed to aid Ukraine so long as a series of U.S. border security proposals are enacted, calling to resume construction on the U.S.-Mexico border wall, nullify advance parole and stricken the qualifications for asylum. 

Despite a partisan split on the matter, a bipartisan group within the Senate has formed with hopes of securing a deal that couples changes to U.S. asylum policy with Biden’s expectations for aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. Additionally, a joint statement was issued by California Senator Alex Padilla and Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin on Nov. 29 demanding that any alterations to asylum rights include “a clear path to legalization for long-standing undocumented immigrants.”