Biden redoubles his pressure on Congress to advance aid to Ukraine

Joe Biden redoubles his pressure to advance his country's economic and military aid to Ukraine, which has been deadlocked in Congress for weeks. While Russia intensifies its offensive in the east of the invaded country, the president of the United States receives this Wednesday at the White House the Democratic and Republican leaders on Capitol Hill to try to obtain approval for assistance that Kiev increasingly requires. more urgent. At the end of the meeting, the Republicans described the conversations as “productive,” but insisted on their demand to first approve a tough border reform. Biden declared himself “encouraged” by the progress in negotiations between the two parties.

The meeting was attended by the leader of the Democratic majority, Chuck Schumer, and the Republican minority, Mitch McConnell, in the Senate; as well as the president of the House of Representatives, Republican Mike Johnson, and the head of the Democratic caucus in this forum, Hakeem Jeffries. The presidents of the respective commissions on National Security were also invited.

Biden “expressed his commitment to reaching a bipartisan agreement on border policy, and the need for additional measures at the border,” the White House said in a statement. The president also “urged Congress to quickly approve his request for national security funds.”

Schumer expressed himself positively in statements to the press after the meeting. According to the Democratic leader, there was “a great deal of agreement” between both sides, and Biden agreed to seek progress in the migration talks. “I am more optimistic than ever about reaching an agreement, I would put the possibility a little over fifty percent, and it is the first time I can say something like that,” he maintained.

But Republican Johnson was more skeptical. The meeting, he considered, was “productive,” but his party maintains its demand to prioritize the approval of tougher measures on the border.

In October, Biden had asked Congress for an extraordinary allocation of $110.5 billion to allocate $64 billion to aid Ukraine, $14 billion to support Israel in its war in Gaza and $6 billion to strengthen security and accelerate asylum procedures in the border with Mexico. But the Republican opposition, where resistance to allocating more money for Ukraine has only grown in the last year, demands a much tougher immigration reform in control of the dividing line as a condition sine qua non to give the green light to assistance to kyiv.

A group of parliamentarians from both parties has been negotiating for weeks to try to reach an agreement, but without much progress. The talks are complicated by the situation in the House of Representatives, where the most extreme Republican wing enjoys an influence disproportionate to its size: today, sick leave or resignations have reduced this party's majority to just three seats. , which next week could be cut to just one. In these circumstances, every vote counts.

And the hardline Republicans demand, in order to give in, something that the Democrats are not willing to give: the approval in the Senate and promulgation of a bill known as HR2, which imposes very harsh immigration control measures, and that the House of Representatives already approved last year.

Biden has indicated, indirectly and very directly, that he is willing to make concessions on the border issue to advance assistance to Ukraine, one of his great foreign policy priorities and to which Washington is the main donor, with more than 75 billion of dollars contributed only in military collaboration. For the president, the fight for the survival of Western democracy is played out on the battlefields of the former Soviet republic; Withdrawing aid would embolden autocrats like Russian President Vladimir Putin and send a message to similar regimes that there is no penalty for violating national sovereignty and the principles of the UN Charter. Something that agrees with Republican McConnell.

“I think we need important changes on the border,” declared the White House tenant. “I have pushed for it. “I'm willing to make significant changes to the border, and negotiations have been going on for the last five weeks, so I'm hopeful we'll get that done.”

Biden's position includes a dose of political calculation: polls consistently point to the immigration issue as one of the great concerns of voters ahead of the November elections. Figures from the Border Control patrol indicate that last year records were broken again and 2.5 million migrants entered the country irregularly. In addition, many Democratic mayors of large cities far from the border are calling for measures to respond to the waves of buses full of asylum seekers that the Republican border states send.

Some of the proposals being discussed include measures to make it more difficult to apply for asylum in the United States, something to which the White House is open. Much more thorny is another Republican demand, the cutting of a tool known as humanitarian parole, which has allowed the arrival of thousands of people fleeing countries like Afghanistan or Ukraine, shaken by war, violence or misery.

“We believe that the negotiations are going well, and we want to see an agreement between the two parties,” said White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre. “The president understands that what we see on the border, the immigration system, has been broken for decades.”

The touchstone in this Wednesday's meeting was the position of Mike Johnson, the president of the House of Representatives chosen for that position by the hard Republican wing. Johnson had declared himself opposed to providing more aid to Ukraine before coming to office last October; An initial meeting at the White House, similar to the one now, immediately after taking office, led him to comment upon leaving then that the suffering of the invaded country should not be forgotten. Since then, however, he has not given any indication of wanting to put the budget item to a vote in the House that he presides over.

At least in public, there seemed to be no change in his stance. Upon leaving the White House, Johnson reiterated to reporters: “We understand that there are concerns about the security and sovereignty of Ukraine, but the American people have the same concerns about their own sovereignty and their own security.” At the meeting, he maintained, “we have talked about the elements necessary to solve this problem. (In the House of Representatives) we have approved our bill and it has indispensable elements, a restoration of the 'stay in Mexico' policy, an end to the practice of detaining (migrants) and immediately releasing them, it is a reform of the asylum and humanitarian parole systems.”

Behind the scenes, Democrats have an argument up their sleeve to try to persuade Johnson and the most reluctant Republicans. As they allege, the opposition party should take advantage of the concessions offered by the Democrats now; If they wait until November – after the elections and even if they win the majority in both Chambers – they will not have Democratic votes to support their proposals; Immigration reform needs a supermajority of at least 60 of the 100 votes in the Senate.

In Davos (Switzerland), where the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum is held, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky joined the calls for the urgency of approving these funds. “If anyone thinks that this is only about Ukraine, they are making a fundamental mistake. The possible directions and even the calendar of a new
Russian aggression beyond Ukraine are becoming increasingly clear,” he said in a meeting with journalists.

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