The Senate of USA rejected for the second time this Thursday a bill that sought to restrict the migration and access to asylum on the border with Mexico.
In an attempt to blame the opposition for not wanting to reach a consensus to address the immigration issue, the Democratic leadership of the Upper House forced a vote on the project even though it did not have enough support to obtain the green light.
With 43 votes in favor and 50 against, that regulation that included measures to restrict access to asylum on the southern border sank in the Senate.
A few minutes after the vote, which was the first step in the procedure to discuss the bill, the White House published a statement accusing Republicans of putting their political priorities above “national security.”
“Republican congressmen don’t care about protecting the border or fixing this country’s immigration system,” said President Joe Biden, who is seeking re-election in the November presidential election.
“If they did, they would have voted for the application of the strictest border law in history,” he added.
The text of the project was negotiated by a group of Republican and Democratic senators at the end of last year, as part of an agreement to obtain the support of conservatives to approve disbursements to the governments of Ukraine and Israel.
In a first vote in February, Republicans sank the project, after former president and conservative party candidate Donald Trump asked the senators that they opposed.
After the budget allocation for both countries was approved in mid-April, the “border security” project stalled.
Republicans, for their part, also accuse Democrats of prioritizing their political interests by bringing this legislative project back to the floor.
“What we are going to vote on today is not a project (…) it is a political message. That doesn’t help us as a country,” said Senator James Lankford, who was part of the group that negotiated the agreement with Democrats in December.
The immigration has become a central issue ahead of the elections in November, becoming the main issue that Americans will take into account when choosing the president, according to the latest polls.
Republican Donald Trump has redoubled the message anti-immigrant which catapulted him to the presidency in 2017, to gather more support this November.
Trump has promised to create giant detention centers for migrants and carry out a massive deportation campaign to expel the more than 11 million undocumented people from the country.
Biden, for his part, has hardened his stance on migration, moving away from the promises with which he won victory in 2020: offering a path to citizenship to people living without immigration status or restoring access to asylum in border.