CHARLOTTE, N.C (TNS) — The Senate is expected to introduce a proposal to fund the government this week, Oklahoma Senator James Lankford said, after months of impasse over potential changes to U.S. policy at the border with Mexico.
“We’re hoping to get a text out later this week,” Lankford, the main Republican negotiator in the Senate, said on Fox News Sunday. “Everybody will have time to be able to read it and go through it. Nobody is going to be jammed in this process.”
Congress must reach a deal for funding the U.S. government to avoid the start of a government shutdown on Jan. 20. Further U.S. aid to allies such as Ukraine and Israel has been stalled by the deadlock.
“That’s encouraging. I want us to see that. I want us to start talking about these national-security issues that we have,” Representative Tony Gonzales, a Texas Republican, said on ABC’s This Week.
Neither lawmaker provided specifics on what policies the bill might include, nor a top-line spending number. Republicans are demanding stricter asylum policies and measures to reduce the number of migrants crossing at the southern border in exchange for clearing the foreign military aid sought by the White House.
“We’re working to thread the needle for things that actually work,” Lankford said.
Earlier this week, Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., was said to be considering talks with the White House over immigration policies as negotiations among a bipartisan group of senators stalled. Lankford suggested that talks between Johnson and the White House would be helpful.
Representative Elise Stefanik, a Republican from New York who’s closely aligned with former President Donald Trump, sought to blame any government shutdown on President Joe Biden.
“We don’t support shutting down the government, but we must secure the border,” Stefanik said on NBC’s Meet the Press. “So, the person who’s threatening a government shutdown is Joe Biden, who refuses to secure the border.”
