WASHINGTON (AP) It took last-minute changes and a full-court press by top Democratic leaders, but the House passed with relative ease a $4.5 billion emergency border aid package to care for thousands of migrant families and unaccompanied children detained after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.
The bill passed along party lines Tuesday night after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi quelled a mini-revolt by progressives and Hispanic lawmakers who sought significant changes to the legislation. New provisions added to the bill were more modest than what those lawmakers had sought, but the urgent need for the funding to prevent the humanitarian emergency on the border from turning into a debacle appeared to outweigh any lingering concerns.
The 230-195 vote sets up a showdown with the Republican-led Senate, which may try instead to force Democrats to send President Donald Trump a different, and broadly bipartisan, companion measure in coming days as the chambers race to wrap up the must-do legislation by the end of the week.
The Senate has a good bill. Our bill is much better, Pelosi, D-Calif., told her Democratic colleagues in a meeting Tuesday morning, according to a senior Democratic aide who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the private session.
We are ensuring that children have food, clothing, sanitary items, shelter and medical care. We are providing access to legal assistance. And we are protecting families because families belong together, Pelosi said in a subsequent floor speech.
The bill contains more than $1 billion to shelter and feed migrants detained by the border patrol and almost $3 billion to care for unaccompanied migrant children who are turned over the Department of Health and Human Services. It seeks to mandate improved standards of care at HHS influx shelters that house children waiting to be placed with sponsors such as family members in the U.S.
Trump said he was displeased with the bill because it includes no money to help secure the border.
Im not happy with it because theres no money for protection, the Republican president said in an interview Wednesday on Fox Business Network. Its like were running hospitals now.
Both House and Senate bills ensure funding could not be shifted to Trumps border wall and would block information on sponsors of immigrant children from being used to deport them. Trump would be denied additional funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention beds.
The Presidents cruel immigration policies that tear apart families and terrorize communities demand the stringent safeguards in this bill to ensure these funds are used for humanitarian needs only not for immigration raids, not detention beds, not a border wall, said House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Nita Lowey, D-N.Y.
Three moderates were the only House Republicans to back the measure. The only four Democratic no votes came from some of the partys best-known freshmen: Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ihan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan.
The White House has threatened to veto the House bill, saying it would hamstring the administrations border security efforts, and the Senates top Republican suggested Tuesday that the House should simply accept the Senate measure which received only a single nay vote during a committee vote last week.
The idea here is to get a (presidential) signature, so I think once we can get that out of the Senate, hopefully on a vote similar to the one in the Appropriations Committee, Im hoping that the House will conclude thats the best way to get the problem solved, which can only happen with a signature, said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.
A handful of GOP conservatives went to the White House to try to persuade Trump to reject the Senate bill and demand additional funding for immigration enforcement such as overtime for border agents and detention facilities run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to a top GOP lawmaker who demanded anonymity to discuss a private meeting. Trump was expected to reject the advice.
House Democrats seeking the changes met late Monday with Pelosi, and lawmakers emerging from the Tuesday morning caucus meeting were generally supportive of the legislation.
