Congress is returning to Washington after a two-week break to a stalemated fight over coronavirus aid and deepening tensions over the administration’s decision to lift a Trump-era border policy.
The work period—which starts on Monday for the Senate and Tuesday for the House—will see lawmakers grappling with the stalled $10 billion in COVID-19 aid and a push to pass a second package that would link global assistance to another round of Ukraine aid.
At the same time, Democrats are dealing with their own divisions over Title 42—a Trump-era policy that allows for the rapid expulsion of migrants at the border and blocks them from seeking asylum—that is colliding with election-year politics because Republicans view the border as a key line of attack.
And Democrats want to revive formal negotiations over a sweeping tax-and-spending plan that was meant to be the center of their legislative agenda, after a roughly $2 trillion version of Build Back Better (BBB) stalled out late last year.
Title 42
Democrats are dealing with an intra-party headache that includes both policy differences and election-year politics stemming from the administration’s decision to repeal Title 42, effective May 23.
Those tensions, which were starting to spill over before the two-week break, have calcified since then with vulnerable Senate incumbents, traditional administration allies and even key committee chairman raising a red flag over the decision.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has been in touch with several lawmakers, many of whom say they’ve been raising the same concerns they are voicing publicly during private conversations.
He’ll testify this week the House Judiciary Committee, House Appropriations Committee, and the House Homeland Security Committee, where he’s likely to be grilled over both the administration’s decision and what the Department of Homeland Security’s plan is once the public health order is lifted.
Mayorkas told CBS News during an interview late last week that the department expected to see an increase in migrants along the border, but that it was prepared for it.
“The assertion that we do not have plans is an assertion that is not grounded in fact,” Mayorkas told CBS News. “We have been planning for months to address increases in migration; those that we already have experienced and those that we might experience upon an end to Title 42.”
But that’s been met with skepticism from some congressional Democrats, many of whom are up for reelection in November and facing criticism from Republicans seeking to tie them to the administration’s border policies.
Mayorkas’s appearance before the House committee isn’t expected to be his only congressional hearing this month.
Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Gary Peters (D-Mich.) noted that Mayorkas will come before his panel as part of the department’s budget request. He’s also eyeing a broader hearing tied to the border.
Despite the pushback, President Biden faced pressure for months from several Democrats and immigration advocates to lift the Trump-era policy, arguing that it was inhumane. Those same outside groups have also been frustrated both by the administration’s messaging and Democrats who have pushed back on lifting Title 42, arguing that they are echoing GOP talking points.
Coronavirus aid
The border fight is also tied to the stalemated $10 billion in coronavirus relief.
A group of Senate Republicans and Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) cut a deal before the break for the assistance, shrinking the scope of the package from $15.6 billion down to $10 billion by dropping roughly $5 billion in global assistance from the package.
But the agreement quickly hit a wall in the Senate as Republicans demanded a vote on an amendment to the bill related to…
Read More: This week: Congress returns to border, spending fights