But as Lankford has increasingly become an outcast in certain Trump-oriented corners of the Republican Party for trying to forge a border security deal with Democrats, he’s not exactly shying away from the fight.
Repeatedly in recent days, Lankford has taken on critics directly. He has suggested that his own conservative allies are spreading misinformation about the deal (whose text has yet to be released). He’s effectively accused them of choosing political expediency and presidential campaign politics over border security. And significantly, he’s had some backup from other Senate Republicans.
It appears unlikely that the deal will ultimately become law; even if it passes in the Senate, its prospects in the House appear dim. But as hopes for it have dwindled, Lankford has doubled down on spending his political capital.
It seemed to begin, quietly, in a mid-January post on X.
“Only in Washington is our southern border political gamesmanship instead of a national security crisis,” he said, as the right wing started ramping up its opposition.
Only in Washington is our southern border political gamesmanship instead of a national security crisis.
— Sen. James Lankford
Lankford over the weekend seemed to expound on his meaning. He suggested that Republicans were flip-flopping and prioritizing Donald Trump’s 2024 election hopes — and there’s evidence for this contention.
“It is interesting: Republicans, four months ago, would not give funding for Ukraine, for Israel and for our southern border because we demanded changes in policy,” Lankford said on CNN.
He added: “And now, it’s interesting, a few months later, when we’re finally getting to the end, they’re like, ‘Oh, just kidding, I actually don’t want a change in law because it’s a presidential election year.’ ”
Lankford has rejected GOP claims that all that’s needed is to have a president like Trump with the will to secure the border. He has noted that even Trump as president emphasized the need for legislation to change things like asylum laws — as his proposal would.
When asked about opposition from the likes of Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), Lankford has repeatedly suggested that they are relying on misinformation.
Asked Sunday on CBS News about Trump’s opposition, Lankford said he looked forward to Trump’s actually being able to read the bill and quickly invoked the “misinformation” label.
“There’s a lot of misinformation out there right now … I hear this comment that it waves in 5,000 people, it hands out work permits, that — all those things are not true,” he said. “There’s just a lot of internet rumors that are running around on this right now.”
Punchbowl News reported Thursday that Lankford said his office had repeatedly reached out to Johnson’s about Johnson’s comments invoking the 5,000 number. (Johnson’s office said Lankford’s office hasn’t been forthcoming with details.)
Both Trump and Johnson have claimed that the deal would allow 5,000 undocumented immigrants per day. In fact, that’s merely the threshold at which a president would be compelled to shut down the border. “This is not someone standing at the border with a little clicker and saying, ‘I’m going to let one more in; we’re at 4,999 and then it has to stop,’ ” Lankford told Fox News on Sunday.
Negotiators have said those detained at the border would no longer be released into the country while they await immigration hearings; asylum claims would have to be decided within 15 days for those who don’t cross at a port of entry.
Lankford told Punchbowl: “I’m not confident anyone who has been attacking it … will come out and speak to y’all and say, ‘Hey, I was wrong.’ None of those folks are going to look at it and come to the press and apologize. They’ll find something different.”
He added some particularly pointed comments suggesting that his colleagues were grandstanding.
“For any of my colleagues that want to do this, go do the work on it,” Lankford said. “But don’t just do a news conference. Actually sit down with the other side and figure out what we can actually resolve.”
Precisely what the endgame is here is a valid question. The deal seems to have little hope in a House in which the speaker must constantly mind his right flank. Trump holds considerable sway; congressional Republicans don’t always abide by his wishes, but election-year politics loom large, and immigration is a pretty big issue on which to break with him.
We’ve also seen before how this can pan out. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) in 2013 joined the “Gang of Eight” and took to conservative media to make a case for the deal. Then he wavered on the final product, and he ultimately effectively disowned the effort after the bill passed in the Senate. (It soon died in the House.)
If this time is to be different, it has a few things working for it. One is that the deal doesn’t include redline proposals for conservatives like a pathway to citizenship (the focal point of the 2013 effort) or protecting the children of undocumented immigrants, or “dreamers” (as the deal Lankford worked on in 2018 would have).
Lankford also isn’t the only one who continues to defend and push the effort. So too have the top two Senate Republicans and the likes of Sens. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), Todd Young (R-Ind.) and Mike Rounds (R-S.D.). Many of them have made principled cases, like Lankford, that this a conservative proposal and that the problem is too significant to bow to Trump’s wishes.
It seems likely to be for naught. But the refusal to let it go, at least for now, has been something.
