The White House has signaled that it is open to several Republican proposals, according to Biden administration officials, lawmakers in both parties and people familiar with the matter.
According to people involved in the talks, Democrats have agreed in principle to raise the standard migrants must meet when they claim they need asylum in the United States because they fear persecution in their home countries.
The White House has also said it would consider a policy similar to the Trump-era emergency rule known as Title 42, which empowered border agents to rapidly expel migrants at the border, according to Senator Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican who is involved in the talks.
The White House included some G.O.P. demands in the emergency funding request that Republicans blocked, such as a significant expansion of detention capacity. The bill dedicated more than $4 billion to the Department of Homeland Security to expand holding facilities at the border.
And the White House has considered the idea of reinstating a practice of detaining migrant families that cross the border together — another line item in the G.O.P.’s latest proposal.
Biden could agree to 100% of their demands and conservatives will just panic and decline everything.
Conservatives do not want a deal at all. They don’t want Ukraine funding to pass as that violates their agreements with Putin.
And they definitely don’t want conservative-style border security under Biden, because then they have nothing to run on in the 2024 election. “Fixing” the border is their biggest platform point. If there’s nothing to fix, their platform becomes much weaker.
Conservatives have never in history entered a negotiation in good faith. Never.