Senate passes $4.6B border aid bill

Pelosi calls Trump to talk about measure

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

The GOP-held Senate on Wednesday passed a bipartisan $4.6 billion measure to deliver aid to the southern border before the government runs out of money to care for thousands of migrant families and unaccompanied children.

The sweeping 84-8 vote came less than 24 hours after the Democratic-controlled House approved a companion measure backed by party liberals that was weighed down by a White House veto threat and bipartisan rejection by the Senate.

Republicans and the White House far prefer the Senate measure, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is pressing for quick negotiations to merge the bills – promising that Democrats won’t knuckle under to demands to send the Senate bill directly to President Donald Trump without changes.

The Senate vote sent the must-pass legislation measure back to the Democratic-controlled House. Next steps are unclear, but Pelosi quickly dismissed speculation that the Democratic-controlled House will simply accept the Senate measure, which cleared a key committee last week with just one dissenting vote. Asked if the House would pass the Senate bill and send it to Trump, Pelosi said, “No.”

Pelosi called Trump on Wednesday afternoon to discuss the measure. “There’s some improvements that we think can be reconciled,” Pelosi told reporters.

Trump said passing the legislation was urgent as he left the White House for Japan and he appeared to leave the door open for negotiations.

“We are moving along very well with a bipartisan bill in the Senate,” Trump said. “It’s very far along, and I believe the House is also going to be getting together with the Senate to get something done. It’s humanitarian aid. It’s very important.”

The final outcome isn’t clear. An impasse could imperil passage of the measure, which is needed soon before federal agencies caring for migrants are hamstrung by lack of money.

Congress plans to leave Washington in a few days for a weeklong July 4 recess, and pressure is intense to wrap up the legislation before then. Failure to act could bring a swift political rebuke and accusations of ignoring the plight of innocent immigrant children who are living in overcrowded, often inadequate federal facilities.

The Senate vote comes less than 24 hours after the House passed its version along party lines after Pelosi quelled a mini-revolt by progressives and Hispanic lawmakers who won relatively modest changes to the legislation. The funding is urgently needed to prevent the humanitarian emergency on the U.S.-Mexico border from worsening.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., blasted the House bill earlier Wednesday.

“It’s a go-nowhere proposal filled with poison pill riders, which the president has indicated he would veto,” McConnell said. “They had to drag their bill way to the left to earn the support of most Democrats. As a result, the House has not made much progress toward actually making a law, just more resistance theater.”

Asked Wednesday if he’s open to adding some language sought by the House, McConnell said, “We’re working on finishing up this week and getting it to the president.”

The Senate rejected the House bill by a 55-37 vote.

“The Senate has a good bill. Our bill is much better,” Pelosi, D-Calif., told her Democratic colleagues earlier in the week. On Wednesday, Pelosi told The Associated Press that she had “a good conversation” with Trump and that “I don’t know if the president is even going to be signing the Senate bill.”

‘They died in each other’s arms’

The mother of a man who drowned alongside his 23-month-old daughter while trying to cross the Rio Grande into Texas said she finds a heartbreaking photograph of their bodies hard to look at but takes some comfort in knowing “they died in each other’s arms.”

Oscar Alberto Martinez Ramirez and his daughter, Valeria, were swept away by the current near Matamoros, Mexico, and Brownsville, Texas, this week. The grim photo shows the girl tucked inside her father’s shirt for protection with her arm draped over his neck – an image that underscores the dangers migrants and asylum-seekers face trying to make it to the United States and the desperate measures they resort to in the face of policies designed to deter them.

“It’s tough – it’s kind of shocking, that image,” the 25-year-old man’s mother, Rosa Ramirez, told The Associated Press. “But at the same time, it fills me with tenderness. I feel so many things, because at no time did he let go of her.”

“You can see how he protected her,” she said. “They died in each other’s arms.”