A new collaborative bipartisan deal to reign in Border chaos is “dead” thanks to Republican House

Republican and Democratic senators are taking to the airwaves, scrambling to pass severe restrictions on migrants flooding across the U.S.-Mexico border. There’s just one thing: Their plan is all but dead.

Why it matters: The Senate might pass the plan, which would be one of the harshest immigration bills of the century. President Biden is ready to sign it. But House Republicans — egged on by former President Trump — already are planning to shut it down.

State of play: Illegal immigration has rocketed to the top of voters’ concerns, and Biden has become increasingly desperate for a solution. Trump and conservative Republicans see a political opportunity to squeeze Biden and Democrats on the issue.

• Trump, whose front-runner status in the Republican presidential race has solidified his leadership of the GOP, has loudly vowed to kill the bipartisan border deal.
• “It’s not going to happen, and I’ll fight it all the way,” Trump said Saturday in Nevada.

Zoom in: House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has fallen in line. He called the deal “dead on arrival” on Friday, then doubled down over the weekend, claiming it wouldn’t do enough to stop illegal border crossings.

• He has said he talks frequently with Trump about the border.
• Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) warned senators last week that Trump’s opposition would make it difficult to get a border plan through Congress.
• A sign of Trump’s influence: Oklahoma’s GOP voted Saturday to censure Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) for being a lead negotiator in the border policy discussions.

The details: The text of the border bill is expected to drop soon. It will include a measure that effectively would block illegal border crossers from asylum once the number of migrant encounters hits a daily average of 5,000 in a week or 8,500 on a single day, as Axios has reported.

• Those restrictions would remain until illegal crossings drop and remain low for an extended period of time.
• The deal also would expedite the asylum process and limit the use of parole to release migrants into the U.S.

The big picture: The migrant crisis at the border and in major U.S. cities is one of the most jeopardizing issues for Biden and Democrats this November.

• It’s also Trump’s marquee political issue. He has every incentive to keep it front and center as he heads toward a likely rematch against Biden.

• Biden has doubled down on a tougher border image in recent months, and has signaled his willingness to “shut down the border” if he’s given new authority under the Senate agreement.

What they’re saying: The White House is accusing Republicans of flip-flopping for politics — first supporting their own strict immigration bill and now saying Biden already has the authority to close the border.

• “If Speaker Johnson continues to believe — as President Biden and Republicans and Democrats in Congress do — that we have an imperative to act immediately on the border, he should give this administration the authority and funding we’re requesting,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement.
• “Right now [the plan’s critics] are functioning off of internet rumors of what’s in the bill, and many of them are false,” Lankford said on “Face the Nation,” defending the plan he has been negotiating.
• “I want to know how house R’s square their support for H.R. 2 with their position now that we should do nothing,” one senior GOP Senate aide told Axios, referring to a sweeping border bill passed by House Republicans last year.
• Republicans “are redefining the terms of any debate for the future,” one former Biden official told Axios. “A very extreme, enforcement-heavy package is now being rejected as not tough enough.”