White House chief of staff Jeff Zients recently heard from a powerful Democratic senator that steep levels of migration at the U.S.-Mexico border had become, in a word, untenable.
Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat, had signed onto a statement denouncing “reports of harmful changes to our asylum system” that were being proposed as part of a border deal on Capitol Hill. Yet Durbin, a veteran of numerous immigration battles, had also received concerning briefings from border officials and seen firsthand how the rising number of asylum-seekers had overwhelmed resources in his Midwestern state.
So when Zientsdialed Durbin one weekend this month for a temperature check on the ongoing border talks, the senator was candid.
“I told him I thought the current situation is unsustainable, and the Democrats need to be part of the solution,” Durbin said. President Joe Biden’s top aide signaled the White House felt the same way, stressing to Durbin that “we have to engage with the Republicans and see if there’s some middle ground,” according to the senator’s retelling.
That conversation between Zients and Durbin is just one of the several calls that the White House chief of staff has been making to key lawmakers in recent days, underscoring how top Biden administration officials have considerably ramped up their involvement with Capitol Hill as the fate of Biden’s emergency spending request for Ukraine remains in the balance.