Democrats and Republicans in the US Senate reached an agreement on Sunday evening local time on immigration restrictions, a new aid package for Ukraine and aid to Israel, international news agencies report. The proposal involves a total of 118.3 billion dollars (109.8 billion euros), of which 60.1 billion dollars (55.8 billion euros) for Ukraine and 14.1 billion dollars (13 billion euros) for Israel.
The Republicans demanded stricter migration rules in exchange for agreeing to the new billions in aid for Ukraine. It has been agreed that migrants may be returned at the border if more than four thousand people report at the border every day and that it is a requirement to send them back if more than five thousand people report at the border every day. The current numbers of migrants attempting to enter the US are much higher.
The Senate will vote on the proposal for the first time on Wednesday. The House of Representatives must then also approve the agreement and a lot of resistance is expected. Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson mentions the bill on X in an initial response “even worse than we expected” and wrote that it “absolutely will not solve the catastrophe at the border that the president has caused.”
Also read
The 'lesser of two evils' campaign is only just beginning, but this time the tables are turned
Republican hardliners are against it because they want much stricter migration measures. Just like former President Donald Trump, who is now making another bid for the White House. Some progressive Democrats think the migration measures are too harsh and the proposals also lack a plan to give the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the US the prospect of American citizenship.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, the Democratic majority leader, said in a statement commenting on the agreement that “issues this bill seeks to address are too important to ignore and too important to let politics get in the way.”
#Senate #reaches #agreement #migration #aid #Ukraine #Israel
