The long-awaited $118 billion supplemental spending deal, which includes funding for Ukraine, Israel and measures to stem the historic crisis at the southern border, was released late Sunday by Senate lawmakers ahead of an expected vote in the upper chamber later this week.
The package has the backing of Senate leaders and the Biden administration, who have said the funding is for the two U.S. allies ($60 billion for Ukraine and $14 billion for Israel) coupled with a bipartisan agreement that will provide approximately $20 billion to control illegal immigration at the southern border, where numbers hit a record 2.4 million encounters in FY 23.
“The bipartisan agreement in the Senate is tough, fair, and takes meaningful steps to address the challenges our country faces after decades of Congressional inaction,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement.
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But it faces significant opposition from Republicans and other conservatives, who say it does not do enough to tackle the border crisis and stop releases into the interior. Some liberal Democrats have also objected to the bill, arguing that it will hurt migrants seeking asylum.
Here are the main parts of the immigration deal:
A U.S. Border Patrol agent watches more than 2,000 migrants at a field processing center on Dec. 18, 2023, in Eagle Pass, Texas. (John Moore/Getty Images)
‘Border Emergency Authority’
At the heart of the deal is a new three-year authority, similar in some ways to the COVID-era Title 42, which allows officials to shut down entries into the U.S. at the southern border.
This authority comes into play when there is a rolling seven-day average of 5,000 encounters a day, or 8,500 encounters in a single day. At that point, DHS is mandated to expel all migrants without processing them, with the exception of unaccompanied children. That authority can only end when encounters drop at least 25% for seven days,…
