Will top leaders help them?
More Senate Democrats are voicing their support to vote on an amendment that would keep Title 42 in place at the border between the U.S. and Mexico if it could move a COVID-19 relief package that’s currently stalled in the Senate.
Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) has kept the bill from the floor because Republicans are adamant about voting on a bipartisan amendment that would rescind the Biden administration’s decision to lift the Title 42 health order, preventing thousands of immigrants from entering the U.S. to seek asylum.
However, more Democrats are considering the vote to break the logjam and inject new money into vaccines, therapeutics, and testing as the country faces another increase in infections and deaths because of new coronavirus variants.
Unless Democrats give into Republicans’ demands for the amendment to secure the border, COVID-19 relief might be stalled until after the midterms.
And although the amendment is expected to fail, vulnerable Senate Democrats are considering voting in favor of the extension, despite the possibility of alienating their liberal base.
However, voting to end Title 42 would be fodder for Republican opponents who would accuse them of weakening the border security.
The bipartisan amendment has been co-sponsored by two vulnerable Democrats, Sens. Maggie Hassan (N.H.) and Mark Kelly (Ariz.), requiring the Department of Health and Human Services to notify Congress when the COVID-19 emergency would end and how they would deal with the inlux of immigrants after the restrictions are lifted.
