US President Joe Biden Tuesday alleged his predecessor Donald Trump is blocking the bipartisan National Security Agreement, which seeks to provide military aid to Ukraine, organise countries in the Indo-Pacific against China and offer a comprehensive solution to the immigration crisis.
"All indications are this bill won't even move forward to the Senate floor. Why? A simple reason, Donald Trump. Because Donald Trump thinks it's bad for him politically, therefore, -- you know, if it's for the country, he's not for it.
"He'd rather weaponize this issue than actually solve it, so for the last 24 hours, he's done nothing, I'm told, but reach out to Republicans in the House and the Senate and threaten them and try to intimidate them to vote against this proposal," Biden said in his address to the nation from the White House.
Over the weekend, Congressional leaders unveiled a White House-backed bipartisan deal which automatically provides work authorisation to about 100,000 H-4 visa-holders, who are spouses and children of a certain category of H-1B visa holders. The National Security Agreement that was announced on Sunday after long negotiations between the Republican and the Democratic leadership in the US Senate also provides a solution to about 250,000 aged-out children of H-1B visa holders.
The move comes as good news for hundreds and thousands of Indian technology professionals who are going through painstakingly long wait for a Green Card in the absence of which their spouses cannot work and their aged-out children face the threat of deportation.
"Rip the Senate immigration Bill," Trump told his supporters Tuesday. "Throw it in the trash. Get rid of it," he said.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters Tuesday that circumstances have now changed since the announcement of the Bipartisan National Security Agreement.
According to Punch Bowl News, McConnell told GOP senators that before border security talks began, immigration policy united Republicans and Ukraine aid divided them.
"Politics on this have changed," he said, adding that this is because Trump wants to run his 2024 campaign focusing on immigration. "We don't want to do anything to undermine him," McConnell said.
Biden told Americans that he would take this issue to the people if the Congress fails to pass the ambitious bill because of the opposition from Trump.
"It looks like they (Republicans) are caving. Frankly, they owe it to the American people to show some spine and do what they know to be right. So I want to tell the American people what's in this bill and why everyone from the Wall Street Journal to the Border Patrol to the Chamber of Commerce, the United States Chamber of Commerce support this bill," he asserted.
Republicans, he said, have to decide who they serve, Donald Trump or the American people? "Are they here to solve problems or just weaponize those problems for political purposes? I know my answer. I serve the American people. I'm here to solve problems." "But if the bill fails, I want to be absolutely clear about something, the American people are going to know why it failed. I'll be taking this issue to the country. And the voters are going to know that it's not just a moment -- just at the moment, we're going to secure the border and fund these other programs," Biden said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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