By Ted Hesson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The White House will step up its engagement with U.S. lawmakers trying to strike a bipartisan deal that would provide military aid for Ukraine and Israel while tightening U.S. border security, a Democratic senator said on Sunday.
Republicans have insisted that additional funding for Ukraine must be paired with major U.S. border security changes but a bipartisan group of senators trying to broker a compromise have made little progress with less than a week before the U.S. Congress leaves for a Christmas break.
“The White House is going to get more engaged this week,” Senator Chris Murphy, the lead Democratic negotiator, said on NBC News’ “Meet the Press.”
Murphy said it was important to know if Democratic President Joe Biden would sign any prospective deal.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Reuters reported last week that the Biden administration open to new limits on U.S. asylum as part of an agreement.
Murphy said the current border security demands by Republicans were “unreasonable” and that they were “playing games with the security of the world” by linking the military aid to U.S. border security measures.
Some Republicans have pushed for border provisions that would allow migrants crossing the border illegally to be quickly deported without the chance to seek U.S. asylum. They have also called for greatly scaling back Biden programs that have allowed hundreds of thousands of migrants to enter lawfully.
(Reporting by Ted Hesson in Washington; Editing by Marguerita Choy)
