Senate’s bipartisan national security deal unveiled; House Republicans vow to nix it

With enthu­si­as­tic back­ing from the Biden-Har­ris admin­is­tra­tion, a bipar­ti­san group of Unit­ed States Sen­a­tors tonight unveiled the text of pro­posed nation­al secu­ri­ty leg­is­la­tion that would increase aid to Ukraine and Israel while mak­ing sub­stan­tial changes to Amer­i­can immi­gra­tion and nat­u­ral­iza­tion poli­cies. At the same time, House Repub­li­cans pro­claimed it dead on arrival, say­ing it has no chance of even being con­sid­ered in Con­gress’ larg­er cham­ber, which they cur­rent­ly control.

“[I]t would be easy to just keep immi­gra­tion and bor­der pol­i­cy as a polit­i­cal cud­gel for anoth­er forty years,” said Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sen­a­tor Chris Mur­phy of Con­necti­cut, one of the nego­tia­tors. (Inde­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Kyrsten Sine­ma of Ari­zona and Repub­li­can James Lank­ford of Okla­homa were the oth­er key fig­ures at the nego­ti­at­ing table.) “But pol­i­tics at its best is about find­ing bipar­ti­san com­pro­mise on the tough­est issues. That’s what we’ve done here.”

Mur­phy cit­ed the fol­low­ing as high­lights of the bill:

• A quick­er, fair­er asy­lum process. No more 10 year wait. Claims processed in a non-detained, non-adver­sar­i­al way in 6 months.
• A slight­ly high­er asy­lum screen­ing stan­dard at the border.
• Also, no more wait­ing for work per­mits. Most asy­lum seek­ers can work immediately.
• A brand new right to legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion for all immi­grants. Remem­ber when Trump denied lawyers to vic­tims of the Mus­lim ban? Nev­er again.
• And…the first ever gov­ern­ment paid-for lawyers for young unac­com­pa­nied minors. A long stand­ing injus­tice righted.
• A require­ment the Pres­i­dent to fun­nel asy­lum claims to the land ports of entry when more than 5,000 peo­ple cross a day. The bor­der nev­er clos­es, but claims must be processed at the ports. This allows for a more a more order­ly, humane asy­lum pro­cess­ing system.
• But… impor­tant checks on that pow­er. It can only be used for a lim­it­ed num­ber of days per year. It sun­sets in three years. Emer­gency cas­es that show up in between the ports still need to be accept­ed. The ports must process a min­i­mum of 1,400 claims a day.
• You can’t reduce arrivals at the bor­der with­out allow­ing for more legal immi­gra­tion. So, more visas! 50,000 extra employ­ment and fam­i­ly reuni­fi­ca­tion visas each year for the next five years. And a brand new visa cat­e­go­ry to allow non-cit­i­zens to vis­it fam­i­ly in the U.S.
• A clar­i­fi­ca­tion of how human­i­tar­i­an parole is used at the land bor­ders, but no changes to the Pres­i­den­t’s abil­i­ty to bring in vet­ted, spon­sored migrants through the pro­gram known as CNHV (Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti, and Venezuela parole).
• A new path­way to cit­i­zen­ship for Afghan parolees (the Afghan Adjust­ment Act) and the chil­dren of H1B hold­ers (these kids are often cur­rent­ly sub­ject to depor­ta­tion when they become 21).

“The bill helps fix the bor­der and reform our bro­ken asy­lum sys­tem. But it doesn’t devi­ate from our nation’s core val­ues,” Mur­phy argued.

“We are a nation that res­cues peo­ple from ter­ror and vio­lence. We are a nation that is stronger because of our tra­di­tion of immi­gra­tion. Peri­od. Stop.”

The reac­tion on the oth­er side of the rotun­da was cold­er than icy.

“I’ve seen enough. This bill is even worse than we expect­ed, and won’t come close to end­ing the bor­der cat­a­stro­phe the Pres­i­dent has cre­at­ed,” grum­bled ultra MAGA House Speak­er Mike John­son, a Don­ald Trump syco­phant. “As the lead Demo­c­rat [sic] nego­tia­tor pro­claimed: Under this leg­is­la­tion, ‘the bor­der nev­er clos­es.’ If this bill reach­es the House, it will be dead on arrival.”

“Let me be clear: The Sen­ate Bor­der Bill will not receive a vote in the House,” tweet­ed House Major­i­ty Leader Steve Scalise, the num­ber two House Repub­li­can behind John­son. “Here’s what the peo­ple push­ing this ‘deal’ aren’t telling you: It accepts 5,000 ille­gal immi­grants a day and gives auto­mat­ic work per­mits to asy­lum recip­i­ents — a mag­net for more ille­gal immigration.”

The Biden-Har­ris admin­is­tra­tion embraced the deal, ignor­ing Scalise’s negativity.

“Our immi­gra­tion sys­tem has been bro­ken for decades,” said Vice Pres­i­dent Kamala Har­ris in a state­ment pro­vid­ed by the White House. “That is why Pres­i­dent Biden and I have spent the last three years putting for­ward solu­tions to fix it and address the root caus­es of migra­tion. On the first day of our Admin­is­tra­tion, we sent a com­pre­hen­sive immi­gra­tion reform bill to Con­gress that includ­ed an increase in fund­ing for bor­der secu­ri­ty and a path­way to cit­i­zen­ship for immi­grants, such as Dream­ers who have been here for years.”

“We have part­nered with coun­tries in the West­ern Hemi­sphere to address glob­al pres­sures that are forc­ing peo­ple from their homes, and worked with the pri­vate sec­tor to pro­mote invest­ment in Cen­tral Amer­i­ca. Last Octo­ber, as part of our nation­al secu­ri­ty sup­ple­men­tal request, we asked for $14 bil­lion for bor­der secu­ri­ty, which would increase per­son­nel and tech­nol­o­gy to secure the bor­der and pro­vide assis­tance to cities to man­age the influx of migrants.”

“At each step, we have been clear: Con­gress must act. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, we have too often been met with those who sought to play polit­i­cal games instead of par­tic­i­pat­ing in solu­tions. For the past two months, Pres­i­dent Biden, mem­bers of our Admin­is­tra­tion, and bipar­ti­san Sen­ate nego­tia­tors have worked togeth­er. Thanks to their col­lab­o­ra­tion, addi­tion­al solu­tions are now at hand.”

“Con­gress must quick­ly pass this agreement.”

“This pack­age will also ensure that the Unit­ed States can con­tin­ue to ful­fill its role of glob­al lead­er­ship by sup­port­ing the peo­ple of Ukraine in their brave fight against unpro­voked Russ­ian aggres­sion; pro­vid­ing Israel what it needs to defend itself against Hamas ter­ror­ists; ensur­ing life-sav­ing human­i­tar­i­an assis­tance to the Pales­tin­ian peo­ple; and strength­en­ing our allies and part­ners in the Indo-Pacific.”

“This agree­ment on bor­der secu­ri­ty and immi­gra­tion does not include every­thing we have fought for over the past three years — and we will con­tin­ue to fight for these pri­or­i­ties – but it shows: we can make the bor­der more secure while pre­serv­ing legal immi­gra­tion, con­sis­tent with our val­ues as a nation.”

“Let us remem­ber: we are a nation of immi­grants. Immi­grants have always helped strength­en our coun­try, grow our econ­o­my, and dri­ve inno­va­tion. We know that in Amer­i­ca, diver­si­ty is our strength. So rather than politi­cize this issue, let us all address it with the urgency and seri­ous­ness it requires.”

Unit­ed States Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Prami­la Jaya­pal took a stark­ly dif­fer­ent oppos­ing view, say­ing that the leg­is­la­tion is need­less­ly puni­tive and problematic.

“I am still review­ing the text of this pro­pos­al, which was con­struct­ed under Repub­li­can hostage-tak­ing and refusal to fund aid for Ukraine with­out cru­el­ty toward immi­grants,” began a state­ment from Jaya­pal, the head of the Con­gres­sion­al Pro­gres­sive Cau­cus and a long­time cham­pi­on of immi­grant rights.

“How­ev­er, it is already clear it includes poi­son pill pro­vi­sions such as new Title 42-like expul­sion author­i­ty that will close the bor­der and turn away asy­lum seek­ers with­out due process, a boon to car­tels who prey on migrants.”

“For migrants who are able to seek asy­lum, they would now be sub­ject to unre­al­is­tic stan­dards and time­lines under which to present their asy­lum claims, forc­ing too many peo­ple back to cer­tain death, dis­crim­i­na­tion, or oth­er harm. The bill also lim­its parole at land ports of entry which will only dis­in­cen­tivize peo­ple com­ing to ports to be processed in a safe and order­ly way.”

“This enforce­ment-only approach in the pro­posed leg­is­la­tion will not be able to mean­ing­ful­ly relieve pres­sure on the south­ern bor­der — in fact these sim­i­lar pro­vi­sions, when uti­lized by Don­ald Trump, only made things worse, increas­ing ille­gal bor­der cross­ings by over 300 per­cent dur­ing his tenure as pres­i­dent,” Jaya­pal not­ed. “As we saw under Trump, it would also lead to inhu­mane camps on the Mex­i­co side of the bor­der and fur­ther embold­en cartels.”

“It does not cre­ate any addi­tion­al legal and safe path­ways for the migrants who are arriv­ing or do any­thing for the immi­grant com­mu­ni­ties who have lived in lim­bo, wait­ing for a roadmap to cit­i­zen­ship, for decades.”

“There is no ques­tion that we need sig­nif­i­cant changes to our immi­gra­tion sys­tem. It is long over­due for mod­ern­iza­tion to allow for effi­cient and order­ly pro­cess­ing of migrants who seek to come to the Unit­ed States and to increase legal path­ways for work and fam­i­ly visas, refugees, and asy­lum seek­ers. How­ev­er, this pro­pos­al includes none of the thought­ful reforms to do that or to actu­al­ly address the sit­u­a­tion at the bor­der in a humane way that rec­og­nizes the con­tri­bu­tions immi­grants make to our econ­o­my and our communities.

“While Don­ald Trump abhor­rent­ly says, ‘immi­grants are poi­son­ing the blood of our coun­try,’ con­gres­sion­al Repub­li­cans con­tin­ue to open­ly admit they’d pre­fer the pol­i­tics of a bro­ken immi­gra­tion sys­tem to a func­tion­al, just process.”

“Democ­rats have giv­en in to these extrem­ist views over and over again for thir­ty years. By refus­ing to make the struc­tur­al changes in the Sen­ate need­ed to pass true reforms, allow­ing MAGA Repub­li­cans to lie to the Amer­i­can pub­lic, and declin­ing to stand up and defend immi­grant com­mu­ni­ties, it appears that Pres­i­dent Biden and Sen­ate Democ­rats have fall­en into the same trap again.”

“We have clear evi­dence that shows the way to reduce bor­der cross­ings is to estab­lish legal path­ways, includ­ing the abil­i­ty for migrants to apply to come to the U.S. in their home coun­tries, and increase resources to pro­vide order­ly pro­cess­ing at the bor­der and of visa back­logs. No amount of tough rhetoric or enforce­ment-only poli­cies will change that reality.”

“The Sen­ate will try to sell this so-called deal by point­ing to some addi­tion­al green cards and fix­es for small immi­grant groups. How­ev­er, let’s be clear: minor visa tweaks in exchange for shut­ting down the asy­lum sys­tem and exact­ing fur­ther harm on the vul­ner­a­ble peo­ple seek­ing refuge in the Unit­ed States is not seri­ous reform and it once again throws immi­grants under the polit­i­cal bus.

“I will con­tin­ue to close­ly exam­ine the text released today, but I can­not sup­port a pro­pos­al that fails to learn from thir­ty years of data and would only repeat our mis­takes — with migrant lives in the crosshairs.”

The White House is well aware that the votes prob­a­bly don’t exist to pass this leg­is­la­tion in the House — and even if they did, Speak­er Mike John­son and his ultra MAGA allies would nev­er bring it up for consideration.

John­son has admit­ted House Repub­li­cans are tak­ing orders from Don­ald Trump, and Trump does­n’t want any deal to reach Pres­i­dent Biden’s desk for sig­na­ture, no mat­ter how many con­ces­sions to Repub­li­can demands it might contain.

For the admin­is­tra­tion, this deal appears to be a sort of elec­tion-year tri­an­gu­la­tion maneu­ver, designed to take some of the wind out of the sails of Repub­li­cans want­i­ng to run hard on immi­gra­tion this year. After the agree­ment goes nowhere, Biden and Har­ris will be able to cred­i­bly say, we were ready to com­pro­mise and do a deal with the Repub­li­cans to address what is hap­pen­ing at the bor­der, but the extrem­ists in their par­ty did Don­ald Trump’s bid­ding and said no.

In the future, if Democ­rats regain a fed­er­al tri­fec­ta, the Con­gres­sion­al Pro­gres­sive Cau­cus would effec­tive­ly have a veto over any deal because its mem­bers’ votes would like­ly be need­ed to pass it in the House, where­as Sen­ate Repub­li­cans could lose their veto if the fil­i­buster were to final­ly be retired.

The “deal” Biden and Har­ris have just agreed to is thus prob­a­bly the most favor­able arrange­ment Repub­li­cans could pos­si­bly hope to get under divid­ed gov­ern­ment. And yet John­son and Scalise are reject­ing it with­out even a sec­ond thought. That says a lot about the sor­ry state of Amer­i­can pol­i­tics in 2024.

Below is a fact sheet from the White House pro­mot­ing the agreement.

FACT SHEET: Biden-Har­ris Admin­is­tra­tion Calls on Con­gress to Imme­di­ate­ly Pass the Bipar­ti­san Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Agreement

The Biden-Har­ris Admin­is­tra­tion strong­ly sup­ports the bipar­ti­san agree­ment announced in the Sen­ate that would address a num­ber of press­ing nation­al secu­ri­ty issues. Pres­i­dent Biden has repeat­ed­ly said he is will­ing to work in a bipar­ti­san way to secure the bor­der and fix our bro­ken immi­gra­tion sys­tem. From his first day in office, he has called on Con­gress to act and over the course of sev­er­al months, his admin­is­tra­tion has worked with a bipar­ti­san group of Sen­a­tors on impor­tant reforms and nec­es­sary funding.

This agree­ment, if passed into law, would be the tough­est and fairest set of reforms to secure the bor­der we’ve had in decades. It will make our coun­try safer, make our bor­der more secure, and treat peo­ple fair­ly and humane­ly while pre­serv­ing legal immi­gra­tion, con­sis­tent with our val­ues as a nation.

This bipar­ti­san nation­al secu­ri­ty agree­ment would also advance our nation­al secu­ri­ty inter­ests by con­tin­u­ing our sup­port for the peo­ple of Ukraine and Israel as they defend them­selves against tyran­ny and ter­ror­ism while also pro­vid­ing much-need­ed human­i­tar­i­an assis­tance to civil­ians affect­ed by con­flicts around the world. The Biden-Har­ris Admin­is­tra­tion calls on Con­gress to not delay and imme­di­ate­ly pass the bipar­ti­san nation­al secu­ri­ty agreement.

Pro­vides Tem­po­rary Emer­gency Author­i­ty for the Pres­i­dent to Shut Down the Bor­der When the Sys­tem is Overwhelmed

• Estab­lish­es a new tem­po­rary author­i­ty, the “Bor­der Emer­gency Author­i­ty,” that allows the Pres­i­dent and Sec­re­tary of Home­land Secu­ri­ty to tem­porar­i­ly pro­hib­it indi­vid­u­als from seek­ing asy­lum, with lim­it­ed excep­tions, when the South­west Bor­der is over­whelmed. The author­i­ty pre­serves access to oth­er pro­tec­tions, con­sis­tent with our inter­na­tion­al oblig­a­tions, and will sun­set after three years.
• Impor­tant­ly, this author­i­ty is to be used when the num­ber of migrants encoun­tered at the bor­der reach­es very high lev­els – lev­els that strain the U.S. government’s abil­i­ty to process migrants.  Addi­tion­al­ly, the author­i­ty is lim­it­ed to a set num­ber of days each cal­en­dar year – in the third year of imple­men­ta­tion the author­i­ty may only be exer­cised for half of a giv­en cal­en­dar year.
• The Unit­ed States is a coun­try of refuge for those flee­ing per­se­cu­tion. For that rea­son, the leg­is­la­tion requires asy­lum access be pre­served for a min­i­mum num­ber of indi­vid­u­als per day, lim­it­ed to those using a safe and order­ly process at ports of entry, when the author­i­ty is invoked.

Expe­dites Access to Work Autho­riza­tion for Hun­dreds of Thou­sands of Migrants

• Ensures that those who are here and qual­i­fy are able to get to work faster. It pro­vides work autho­riza­tion to asy­lum seek­ers once they receive a pos­i­tive pro­tec­tion screen­ing deter­mi­na­tion. This will allow asy­lum seek­ers to begin to sup­port them­selves and their fam­i­lies in the Unit­ed States much ear­li­er than the cur­rent 180-day statu­to­ri­ly required wait­ing peri­od, which only begins after an indi­vid­ual sub­mits an asy­lum appli­ca­tion.  This will also reduce the resource strain on our cities and states who have been sup­port­ing asy­lum seek­ers dur­ing this exist­ing wait­ing period.
• This bill pro­vides work autho­riza­tion to approx­i­mate­ly 25,000 K‑1, K‑2, and K‑3 non­im­mi­grant visa hold­ers (fiancé or spouse and chil­dren of U.S. cit­i­zens) per year, and about 100,000 H‑4 spous­es and chil­dren of cer­tain H‑1B non­im­mi­grant visa hold­ers who have com­plet­ed immi­grant peti­tions (tem­po­rary skilled work­ers) per year, so they no longer have to apply and wait for approval before they can begin work­ing in the Unit­ed States.

Estab­lish­es an Effi­cient and Fair Process for Con­sid­er­a­tion of Asy­lum and oth­er Pro­tec­tion Claims by those arriv­ing at our South­west Border

• Today, the process to get to a final deci­sion on a migrant’s asy­lum claim can take 5–7 years.  That is far too long.  Once ful­ly imple­ment­ed, this bipar­ti­san agree­ment would – for the first time – give the Admin­is­tra­tion the author­i­ty and resources to reduce that process to 6 months.  This gets peo­ple quick deci­sions on their asy­lum claims rather than leav­ing them and their fam­i­lies in lim­bo for years.
• The agree­ment also for the first time gives Asy­lum Offi­cers the author­i­ty to grant a claim at the pro­tec­tion screen­ing stage if the case is clear and con­vinc­ing, there­by reduc­ing the strain on the asy­lum system.

Recal­i­brates the Asy­lum Screen­ing Process

• Moves con­sid­er­a­tion of statu­to­ry bars to asy­lum eli­gi­bil­i­ty, such as crim­i­nal con­vic­tions, into the screen­ing stage. This will ensure that those who pose a pub­lic safe­ty or nation­al secu­ri­ty risk are removed as quick­ly in the process as pos­si­ble rather than remain­ing in pro­longed, cost­ly deten­tion pri­or to removal.
• Mod­i­fies the screen­ing thresh­old for asy­lum from “sig­nif­i­cant pos­si­bil­i­ty” to “rea­son­able pos­si­bil­i­ty,” with the goal of mak­ing it more like­ly that those who are screened in to pur­sue pro­tec­tion claims are ulti­mate­ly found to have a valid asy­lum claim.  Cur­rent­ly, of all migrants screened in and allowed to go to the next phase, only rough­ly 20 per­cent are ulti­mate­ly grant­ed asylum.

Pro­vides Crit­i­cal Fund­ing for Com­bat­ting Smug­gling and Drug Traf­fick­ing, Bor­der Secu­ri­ty, and Asy­lum Processing

• Funds the instal­la­tion of 100 cut­ting-edge inspec­tion machines to help detect fen­tanyl at our South­west Bor­der ports of entry.
• Over 1,500 new U.S. Cus­toms and Bor­der Pro­tec­tion (CBP) per­son­nel includ­ing Bor­der Patrol Agents and CBP Officers.
• Over 4,300 new Asy­lum Offi­cers and addi­tion­al U.S. Cit­i­zen­ship and Immi­gra­tion Ser­vices staff to facil­i­tate time­ly and fair decisions.
• 100 new immi­gra­tion judge teams to help reduce the asy­lum case­load back­log and adju­di­cate cas­es more quickly.
• Shel­ter and crit­i­cal ser­vices for new­com­ers in our cities and states.
• 1,200 new U.S. Immi­gra­tion and Cus­toms Enforce­ment per­son­nel for func­tions includ­ing enforce­ment and deportations.
• More resources to fund trans­porta­tion needs to enable increased removals.
• Sup­port to part­ner nations host­ing large num­bers of migrants and refugees, and fund­ing to part­ner nations to ensure coop­er­a­tion in accept­ing returns asso­ci­at­ed with the imple­men­ta­tion of the Bor­der Emer­gency Author­i­ty.

Strength­ens Fed­er­al Law Against Fen­tanyl Trafficking

• Declares that inter­na­tion­al traf­fick­ing of fen­tanyl is a nation­al emer­gency and gives the Pres­i­dent author­i­ty to impose sanc­tions on any for­eign per­son know­ing­ly involved in sig­nif­i­cant traf­fick­ing of fen­tanyl by a transna­tion­al crim­i­nal organization.
• Allows for trans­fer of sanc­tioned per­sons’ for­feit­ed prop­er­ty to for­fei­ture funds and autho­rizes Trea­sury to impose addi­tion­al restric­tions against sanc­tioned per­sons upon a deter­mi­na­tion that their trans­ac­tions are of pri­ma­ry mon­ey laun­der­ing concern.
• Directs Treasury’s Finan­cial Crimes Enforce­ment Net­work to issue guid­ance on fil­ing sus­pi­cious trans­ac­tions reports relat­ed to fen­tanyl traf­fick­ing by transna­tion­al crim­i­nal organizations.

Increas­es Law­ful Path­ways to Come to the Unit­ed States

• For the first time in over 30 years, rais­es the cap on the num­ber of immi­grant visas avail­able annu­al­ly by adding an addi­tion­al 250,000 immi­grant visas over 5 years (50,000/year).  160,000 of these visas will be fam­i­ly-based, and the oth­er 90,000 will be employment-based.
• These addi­tion­al immi­grant visas expand law­ful path­ways to the Unit­ed States, pri­or­i­tiz­ing fam­i­ly reuni­fi­ca­tion and reduc­ing the time fam­i­lies have to spend apart, and get U.S. busi­ness­es access to addi­tion­al workers.
• Estab­lish­es a faster path­way to per­ma­nent sta­tus for the approx­i­mate­ly 76,000 Afghan allies who entered the Unit­ed States under Oper­a­tion Allies Wel­come and their families.

Pro­motes Fam­i­ly Uni­ty and Sta­bil­i­ty for Noncitizens

• Pro­vides relief to over 250,000 indi­vid­u­als who came to the Unit­ed States as chil­dren on their par­ents’ work visa.  These indi­vid­u­als have resided law­ful­ly in the Unit­ed States since they were chil­dren and have estab­lished lives here in the U.S but have since “aged out” of con­tin­u­ing to receive law­ful sta­tus through their par­ents and have no oth­er means of law­ful­ly remain­ing in the Unit­ed States with their fam­i­lies. Nonci­t­i­zens who lived law­ful­ly in the Unit­ed States as a depen­dent child of an employ­ment-based non­im­mi­grant for at least 8 years before turn­ing 21 will be eli­gi­ble to remain tem­porar­i­ly in the Unit­ed States with work authorization.
• In sup­port of fam­i­ly uni­ty, the bill makes clear that cer­tain nonci­t­i­zens can trav­el to the Unit­ed States on a tem­po­rary vis­i­tor (B) visa to vis­it their fam­i­ly members.

Ensure the Humane and Fair Treat­ment of Those Seek­ing Asy­lum, Espe­cial­ly the Most Vulnerable 

• Chil­dren should not be expect­ed to rep­re­sent them­selves in a court – and this agree­ment will pro­vide, for the first time, gov­ern­ment-man­dat­ed and fund­ed legal coun­sel for unac­com­pa­nied chil­dren age 13 or younger as they go through the process to seek asy­lum.  The bill would also pro­vide coun­sel to par­tic­u­lar­ly vul­ner­a­ble, men­tal­ly incom­pe­tent adults.
• Strength­ens legal require­ments that migrants always be pro­vid­ed with clear and acces­si­ble infor­ma­tion about their rights, includ­ing their right to counsel.
• Man­dates that only trained Asy­lum Offi­cers are per­mit­ted to con­duct pro­tec­tion screenings.

Ukraine:

• Pro­vides crit­i­cal­ly-need­ed mil­i­tary aid to help the peo­ple of Ukraine defend them­selves against Russ­ian aggres­sion.  Rus­sia con­tin­ues to launch aer­i­al assaults on Ukrain­ian cities and is active­ly attack­ing Ukrain­ian forces.
• Invests in our defense indus­tri­al base, sup­port­ing Amer­i­can jobs across our coun­try, and pro­duce weapons and equip­ment that the Unit­ed States can send Ukraine to help Ukraine’s mil­i­tary pro­tect its peo­ple, defend against Russ­ian attacks, and suc­ceed on the battlefield.
• Enables the Unit­ed States to con­tin­ue to send eco­nom­ic assis­tance to Ukraine. Putin has made destroy­ing Ukraine’s econ­o­my cen­tral to his war strat­e­gy and boost­ing Ukraine’s econ­o­my is essen­tial to its sur­vival. If Ukraine’s econ­o­my col­laps­es, they will not be able to keep fight­ing. This aid will help Ukraine pay its first respon­ders, import basic goods, and pro­vide essen­tial ser­vices to its population.

Israel:

• Autho­rizes the Unit­ed States to pro­vide addi­tion­al mil­i­tary aid to help Israel defend itself from Hamas, which com­mit­ted hor­rif­ic acts of ter­ror on Octo­ber 7th, and whose lead­ers have pledged to repeat the attacks of Octo­ber 7th over and over again until Israel is annihilated.
• The aid in this agree­ment will also help Israel replen­ish its air defens­es and ensure it is pre­pared for any future contingencies.
• This includes its defense against Iran and groups backed by Iran, includ­ing Hezbol­lah. The fund­ing in this agree­ment is essen­tial to sup­port­ing Israel’s short- and long-term defense needs against a broad array of imme­di­ate and future threats.

Human­i­tar­i­an Aid:

• Includes impor­tant human­i­tar­i­an aid fund­ing to help civil­ians in need around the world, whether it’s to address the spillover effects of Putin’s war and help Ukraini­ans who have been dis­placed by Russia’s inva­sion, or to help Pales­tini­ans in Gaza, where we are active­ly work­ing to increase the flow of aid for Pales­tin­ian civil­ians who have noth­ing to do with Hamas.

Indo-Pacif­ic:

• Pro­vides resources to help our allies and part­ners in the region build the capa­bil­i­ties nec­es­sary to address threats from an increas­ing­ly assertive PRC and to meet emerg­ing chal­lenges. It is crit­i­cal­ly impor­tant that we main­tain our focus on the Indo-Pacif­ic and pre­serve peace and stability. 

The text of the deal is below in case you’d like to read it yourself.

It’s unclear if Con­gress will be able to pass any aid pack­age for any of Amer­i­ca’s allies this year. Giv­en the dys­func­tion on Capi­tol Hill and the grow­ing pow­er of the iso­la­tion­ist wing of Don­ald Trump’s Repub­li­can Par­ty, it’s hard to rate the prospects for secu­ri­ty assis­tance to Ukraine in par­tic­u­lar as any­thing but poor. And the Netanyahu gov­ern­men­t’s con­duct and inde­fen­si­ble deci­sions are mak­ing it less like­ly that Con­gress will be able to agree on fur­ther assis­tance for Israel, either.