Senate Republicans warn House they won't get a better immigration deal under Trump

WASHINGTON — Leading Senate Republicans are warning their House colleagues not to play political games with the current immigration negotiations because they won’t get a better deal down the road under a potential second Donald Trump presidency.

“To those who think that if President Trump wins, which I hope he does, that we can get a better deal — you won’t,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told reporters Wednesday. “You got to get 60 votes in the United States Senate.”

“To my Republican friends: To get this kind of border security without granting a pathway to citizenship is really unheard of. So if you think you’re going to get a better deal next time, in ’25, if President Trump’s president, Democrats will be expecting a pathway to citizenship for that,” he said. “So to my Republican colleagues, this is a historic moment to reform the border.”

Senate Minority Whip John Thune, R-S.D., echoed Graham's view.

“The Democrats will not give us anything close to this if we have to get 60 votes in the United States Senate in a Republican majority,” Thune said. “We have a unique opportunity here. And the timing is right to do this.”

The pleas from the Republicans come as senators are expressing growing optimism that they’re on the brink of securing a bipartisan deal on tougher asylum and border laws that they have been negotiating for months, with uncertainty looming as to whether the GOP-controlled House would accept it.

The emerging Senate package is expected to raise the bar for asylum-seekers to come to the U.S., grant additional powers to remove migrants to control the border and restrict the use of parole to admit certain migrants as they await processing for their cases.

While it has not been finalized, the latter is the