Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) on Sunday attacked Republicans over the stalled bipartisan Senate border bill, with House Republicans threatening to repeal the bill to help former President Trump win the 2024 election. He claimed to have decided.
The border security and asylum overhaul bill initially had strong bipartisan support in the Senate last week, but died after President Trump and House Republicans opposed it. Murphy said in an interview on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that Republicans have no intention of handing victory to Biden by passing the bill.
“As soon as Republicans found out they were actually going to fix the border, they voted against it en masse, because they want the border to remain chaotic,” Murphy said. “It helps us address this,” Murphy said.
President Trump has voiced opposition to the deal, saying it would help Biden by proving that Democrats can pass substantive border policy. Republicans have since called on Biden to use executive authority to close the border, something the president says he does not have the authority to do.
“He has no legal authority to close the border. Our bill, a bipartisan bill, would have given him that authority,” Murphy said. “If checkpoints are routinely too high, the president could close portions of the border.”
“The asylum system is broken. You can’t fix it with an executive order,” he continued. “It takes 10 years for asylum claims to be processed, and many of them don’t have a legitimate claim. Only legislation can fix that. Our bill would do that.”
The repeal of the border security bill leaves other legislative priorities up in the air for Democrats. Republicans promised to pass billions of dollars in foreign aid alongside the border security bill, but the breakdown has cast doubt on the future of aid to Ukraine.
Murphy said he was “optimistic” that additional diplomatic and security legislation would pass the Senate this week, but it was unclear whether it would pass the House as well.
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