Embarrassment for Chuck Schumer as his second try to pass $22.5B border bill stunningly FAILS...putting Joe Biden in a bind

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer's second attempt to revive a border security bill failed spectacularly Thursday as even more Democrats joined Republicans to kill his effort. 

The liberal leader was trying to alleviate pressure on his more vulnerable Democrat colleagues whose constituents are upset by Biden's border policies, which have ushered in record illegal immigration. 

But his plan backfired as Democrats joined Republicans to shoot down the effort in a 43 to 50 vote.

In many states, immigration is the top issue for voters, who say that the additional 10 million migrants who have entered under Biden - dubbed by the White House as 'newcomers' - are straining the states. 

Republicans, meanwhile, have maintained that Biden does not need new laws to secure the border and point to the 94 executive actions he took to reverse Trump's border policies.

President Joe Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., arrive in New York

But Biden and the White House have refused to take executive action to secure the border, with Press Sec. Karine Jean-Pierre incredulously responded to reporters 'Why should he?'

The measure was brought back up after it failed in February, when the GOP - at the direction of Donald Trump - tanked it for having inadequate border security reforms.

But Schumer will get a silver lining from the border bill burnout: He, and his fellow Democrats, get to tell their voters they tried.

Whether that message will be well received by voters is another question entirely. 

The measure would have provided $22.5 billion for border security measures and was negotiated by Senate Republicans and Democrats for months before being unveiled in February. 

The Border Act would reform U.S. asylum laws, hire thousands of border agents and seek to curtail fentanyl smuggling, among other measures, according to Schumer's office.

The bill would have provided $2.3 billion in refugee assistance inside the U.S. and $20.2 billion for improvements to U.S. border security.

Sen. Chuck Schumer has said that President Joe Biden needs additional laws passed to be able to effectively address the immigration issues along the U.S.-Mexico border

Firefighters (from L) Rodrigo Pineda, William Dorsey and Lt. Julio Valdes of the Eagle Pass Fire Department recover a body from the Rio Grande river on March 1, 2024 in Eagle Pass, Texas. Eagle Pass Fire and EMS assisted with a body recovery of a suspected drowned migrant. The Fire Department has seen an increase in calls for assistance from Border Patrol as the number of migrants crossing has steadily gone up in the area

Asylum seekers walk for their asylum interview appointment with US authorities at the El Chaparral crossing port in Tijuana, Mexico

Groups of migrants of different nationalities arrive at the Rio Grande, to cross it and surrender to the American authorities

But earlier in the week before flatlining the pulse of the borer bill, Republicans insisted the status quo would be more effective than the Border Act. 

'This bill is worse than doing nothing,' Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., said of the bill Wednesday. 

He and a group of other Republicans explained their case against the bill at a press conference hosted by Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn.

'It is not a border, and it is not a border security bill,' she said at the Wednesday presser. 

'This is an election year political stunt designed to give our Democratic colleagues the appearance of doing something about the problem without doing anything at all.'

'We are a nation of law and order, and yet the Biden administration has allowed over 10 million illegal aliens to flood our border that's higher than the populations of seven major US cities, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, la Knoxville, Memphis Nashville, combined,' she continued. 

She and her colleagues made it clear: Reviving the already beaten-down border bill is just an attempt to give campaign fodder to Senate Democrats at risk of losing their seats in Congress. 

Sen. Marsha Blackburn is seen during a news conference on Capitol Hill on May 22, 2024 in Washington, DC. Senate Democrats have revived the bipartisan border bill that was already blocked once earlier this year

Blackburn and a cohort of Republican lawmakers claimed the revival of the bill was an election year stunt to give vulnerable Senate Democrats something to campaign on

'Whether it's John Tester, or any other the Democrats that are up for [reelection] in purple states, the American people are going to hold them accountable,' Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., said at the event. 

Sens. John Tester, D-Mont., Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and Bob Casey, D-Pa., Jack Rosen, D-Ne., and Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., are all thought to be in trouble with voters in their states over immigration. 

In May 2023, House Republicans passed a border bill that they believe would appropriately address what they claim is a 'border crisis,' but that measure, H.R.2, has not been touched by the Democrat-controlled upper chamber. 

Trying to explain the difference to voters, Schumer said Wednesday on the Senate floor 'Tomorrow, Senators face an important decision: will both sides come together to advance a bipartisan border security bill, or will partisanship get in the way yet again?'

'Unlike H.R. 2, a very partisan bill, this bipartisan bill was written with the goal of getting sixty votes in the Senate. It had input from both Republicans and Democrats. H.R. 2 can’t claim that. It was totally put together by Republicans, and got virtually no Democratic support,' the New York Democrat added. 

But Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., later shot down those claims in his floor remarks.

'The American people aren't fooled. They know the president's summary reversal on common sense border authorities is what started the crisis,' he said Wednesday.

A migrant with a child crosses the Rio Grande river from Mexico into Texas

A caravan wades past a string of buoys, being constructed to deter migrants crossings through the Rio Grande river, as they look for an opening in the concertina wire to enter into the U.S. 

'And they know the solution is not cynical senate theater.'

'The solution is a president who's willing to exercise authority to use the tools we already have at his disposal and to start cleaning up this mess,' McConnell continued.

'If Senate Democrats wanted to start fixing the crisis tomorrow, they would be urging the president to do exactly that.'

Earlier that day, Democrats blocked consideration of Sen. John Barrasso's, R-Wyo., Build The Wall Act, which would have finished construction on a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border using unspent COVID-19 pandemic funds. 

'Democrats in this body have done nothing to secure the border. They’ve done nothing to stop the flood of illegal immigrants,' Barrasso said Wednesday.