Senate blocks bipartisan $118bn bill on US-Mexico border and Ukraine

The Senate blocked a bipartisan border and national security bill from advancing on Wednesday, as Democrats accused Republicans of bending to the political wishes of Donald Trump at the expense of their constituents.

The vote was 49 to 50, with 45 Democrats and four Republicans supporting the bill’s advancement. Sixty votes were needed to begin debate on the bill.

Most of the Republican conference opposed the bill’s advancement after complaining that the legislation did not go far enough in addressing the crisis at the US-Mexico border, where arrests for illegal crossings have hit record highs. Five members of the Democratic caucus also voted to block the bill, out of concern about the severity of the border-security measures and the added funding for Israel’s military amid the war in Gaza.

The Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer of New York, initially voted for the bill’s advancement but then changed his vote – a procedural maneuver that would allow the chamber to revisit the proposal in the future.

The $118bn bill would have granted the president a new power to shut down the border when daily crossings pass a certain limit while also expediting the asylum review process, which could have led to quicker deportation for many migrants. The bill would have provided $60bn in military assistance for Ukraine, $14bn in security assistance for Israel and $10bn in humanitarian assistance for civilians affected by wars in Ukraine, and Gaza and the West Bank.

With the border deal dead, Schumer said the chamber would immediately turn its attention to a separate funding package that would provide foreign aid without addressing the situation at the border.

“This package will otherwise be largely the same. It will have strong funding for Ukraine, funding for Israel, help for innocent civilians in Gaza and funding for the Indo-Pacific,” Schumer said in a floor speech on Wednesday morning.

Schumer continued: “The legislation on the floor today is one of the most important security packages the Senate has considered in a very long time, so the onus is on Senate Republicans to finally take yes for an answer. It would be an embarrassment for our country – and an absolute nightmare for the Republican party – if they reject national security funding twice in one day. Today is the day for Republicans to do the right thing when it comes to our national security.”

But it remained deeply unclear whether a foreign aid package without border measures could pass the Senate, which considered a similar proposal back in December. Republicans, who insisted that the legislation must address the border, previously blocked that package from advancing.

Some hard-right Republicans were already indicating that they would oppose the standalone bill, demanding more concessions from Democrats on border policy. Senator Mike Lee, a Republican of Utah, said members of his party should not approve the bill without “language conditioning any Ukraine funds on the achievement of border-security benchmarks”.

On Tuesday, Mike Johnson, the Republican House speaker, had tried to pre-empt a potential foreign aid package by holding a vote on a bill that would only provide funding to Israel. The bill was designed to appeal to hard-right Republicans, who have grown increasingly resistant to Ukraine funding, but the House voted it down on Tuesday evening.

In a pointed speech delivered at the White House on Tuesday, Joe Biden blamed the border bill’s expected failure on Trump, who had encouraged Republicans to oppose the deal. Writing on his social media platform Truth Social on Monday, Trump dismissed the bill as “nothing more than a highly sophisticated trap for Republicans to assume the blame on what the Radical Left Democrats have done to our Border, just in time for our most important EVER Election”. Echoing Trump’s concern about the impact that the bill’s passage could have on the presidential race, some Republican lawmakers have suggested border security should not be addressed until after the November election.

“All indications are this bill won’t even move forward to the Senate floor. Why? A simple reason: Donald Trump. Because Donald Trump thinks it’s bad for him politically … He’d rather weaponize this issue than actually solve it,” Biden said on Tuesday. “Every day between now and November, the American people are going to know that the only reason the border is not secure is Donald Trump and his Maga [Make America great again] Republican friends.”