- Written by Bernd Debsmann Jr.
- BBC News, Washington
Will the Republican Party serve Trump or the people: Biden
President Joe Biden and President Donald Trump are exchanging blame for the stalling of a bipartisan immigration bill.
The bill has already been rejected by House Republicans, and opposition is growing in the Senate.
Biden said in a speech at the White House that his predecessor would “rather weaponize” the problem than solve it.
Trump's campaign said Biden's policies are “causing death, destruction, and chaos in every community in America.”
Supporters, including Democrats and Republicans in Congress, say the 370-page bill could stem the record pace of illegal immigration at the U.S. southern border.
If passed, this bill would spend hundreds of millions of dollars on border wall construction.
It would also speed up decisions on asylum applications, limit humanitarian parole and expand powers to deport migrants.
The bill would allow the federal government to close the border if the number of immigrants entering the country exceeds a threshold of 5,000 per week.
The $120bn (£95bn) includes around $20bn in US border funding, $60bn to support Ukraine in its war against Russia and a further $14bn in security aid to Israel. There is.
On Tuesday night, House Republicans tried to split the Israel aid into their own $17.6 billion (about £14 billion) package, but it failed.
Members of the same party narrowly failed to impeach Biden's top immigration official, the secretary of homeland security, over the border crisis.
“The world is watching,” Biden said at the White House on the same day. “They're waiting to see what we're going to do. We can't continue with petty partisan politics.”
Still, the president acknowledged that despite support from Border Patrol unions, “all indications are that this bill will not even advance to the Senate floor.”
“Why?” he asked. “It's simple: Donald Trump. Donald Trump doesn't think it's good for him politically.”
Biden said the former president has spent the past 24 hours lobbying Republicans in the House and Senate to block the proposal.
He said Trump had tried to intimidate Republican lawmakers, but “they seem to be giving in.”
Biden called on lawmakers to “show some spine.”
The Trump campaign slammed Biden's speech, calling it “an embarrassment to our country and a slap in the face to the American people.”
Press Secretary Caroline Levitt said Biden's criticism of Trump was a “brazen, pathetic lie, and the American people know the truth.”
The statement also said that Trump's policies “created the most secure border in American history, and it was Joe Biden who reversed it.”
“Only idiots or radical left Democrats would vote for this bill,” Trump wrote on social media on Monday.
Even if the bill passes the Senate, where it is scheduled to vote on Wednesday, it is likely to stall in the House. Chairman Mike Johnson has already declared that it will be “dead on arrival.”
The agreement has also drawn the ire of immigration activists who say the Biden administration is not fulfilling its campaign promises.
Erika Pinheiro, executive director of Al Otro Lado, an organization that provides legal and humanitarian assistance to immigrants, said: “The Democratic Party has completely abandoned the pretense of being considerate to immigrants.Immigrants will have an advantage in the next election. That's because I think it will.”
