Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the foreign aid included in the Emergency National Security Supplemental Appropriations Act is vital to preventing the escalation of current international conflicts.
The bill was released on Feb. 4 and immediately denounced by conservative lawmakers and political commentators who believe the bill is insufficient to address the domestic security concerns created by America’s border crisis.
“We’re at a turning point in America,” said Schumer during an interview with MSNBC on Feb. 5. “This bill is crucial and history will look back on it and say, ‘Did America fail itself?’”
The New York senator said it was vital to aid Ukraine to prevent Russian President Vladimir Putin from walking over the country.
“We will lose the war and we could be fighting in Eastern Europe in a NATO ally in a few years,” Schumer said. “Americans won’t like that.”
“If we don’t help Israel defend itself against Hamas, that perpetual war will go on and on and on,” he continued. “If we don’t help humanitarian aid to the starving Palestinians in Gaza, hundreds of thousands could starve.”
Schumer largely blamed the resistance to the bill on former President Donald Trump and his influence on modern conservative ideology.
“Too many Republicans, including Speaker Johnson, are just scared to death of Donald Trump. Donald Trump has said he wants chaos. … The majority of Republican senators know this bill is the right thing to do,” said the Democrat. “It is a compromise – I don’t like everything in it, and neither does [Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell] but it's a compromise. That is the only way you get things important done in the Senate.”
“Will the senators drown out the political noise from Trump and his minions and do the right thing for America? It is a crucial question,” Schumer warned.
House Republicans have rallied against the bill, which would reserve more than $90 billion to assist foreign nations. This would include $62 billion in military support to Ukraine, $14 billion in military support for Israel, $10 billion in humanitarian support for both Gaza and Ukraine, and $5 billion for Indo-Pacific nations. In total, the proposal has a budget of $118 billion.
In a joint statement, the House Republican Leadership said the Senate’s bill “fails in every policy area needed to secure our border and would actually incentivize more illegal immigration.”
“Among its many flaws, the bill expands work authorization for illegal aliens while failing to include critical asylum reforms,” the Republicans stated. “Even worse, its language allowing illegals to be ‘released from physical custody’ would effectively endorse Biden’s ‘catch and release’ policy. … America’s sovereignty is at stake. Any consideration of this bill in its current form is a waste of time.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson, Majority Leader Steve Scalise, Whip Tom Emmer, and Chairwoman Elise Stefanik called on Senate Republicans to reject the bill.
Some Republicans in the Senate have criticized the proposal and have vowed not to support the measure.
“At every step along the way, President Biden has made it clear that he doesn't want to end the border crisis - he wants to enable it,” Alabama Senator Katie Boyd Britt wrote in a Feb. 5 post on X. “I won't support this supplemental funding bill, because it would not effectively stop President Biden from continuing his mass migration agenda.”
“I can’t support a bill that doesn’t secure the border, provides taxpayer funded lawyers to illegal immigrants and gives billions to radical open borders groups,” wrote Montana Senator Steve Daines in a statement. “I’m a no.”
Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn described America as a “nation of law and order” and denounced the Biden administration for allowing “over 8.8 million illegal immigrants to flood our border.”
“I will never vote to make illegal immigration legal, and I will not support this deal,” she said in a statement on X. “If my Democratic colleagues are serious about working with us to secure the border, they should call for a vote on the Secure the Border Act (H.R.2), which arrived in the Senate on May 15 and has languished without even a hearing.”
