The U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday evening passed a supplemental border spending package worth $4.5 billion after a raucous fight between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the leftist wing of her Democrat conference.
Politico reported in the wake of the House passage of the bill:
Speaker Nancy Pelosi clinched an 11th hour deal with progressives on an emergency border spending package on Tuesday, avoiding an embarrassing intraparty split and ensuring the bill’s passage. Top Democrats made several tweaks to the contentious $4.5 billion border funding bill, just hours before it will be considered on the floor, according to multiple lawmakers and aides.
Changes, according to Politico, include a number of capitulations to the far-left led by socialists like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY):
The newest version will include strict conditions requiring private detention facilities to meet certain standards of care within six months or risk losing their contract — the second time that progressive leaders have forced changes to the bill in the last two days amid reluctance to giving President Donald Trump any money for his immigration agenda.
President Donald Trump’s administration, in an effort to address the rising crisis on the border, asked Congress months ago for more resources. Democrats initially resisted but then finally relented when they realized how bad the problem is–even though the Democrats stocked the bill up with a number of leftist open borders priorities.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, in a fiery speech on the House floor, ripped Pelosi and her allies for violating a number of rules of the House to jam through the bill with appeasements to the far-left of her conference.
While Politico frames this as a “win” for Pelosi, after she faced near-revolt in her own ranks over the initial efforts before bending to the left’s will, the matter is hardly over. The U.S. Senate still has to pass its own bill, and it is unclear whether the GOP-led U.S. Senate will agree with any of the radical handouts to the left that Pelosi inserted and that McCarthy exposed in his speech.
Such an impasse could further delay assistance the Trump administration says it needs to effectively deal with the humanitarian elements of the border crisis, even as Mexico, after pressure from the White House, steps up its efforts to stop the flow of illegal immigration through its country into the United States.