- After months of Senate meetings, a group of legislators revealed a bipartisan border bill.
- Immediately following, congressional Republicans railed against the bill.
A Democratic senator said he's "just gobsmacked" to see congressional Republicans continue rapidly coalesce against the recently revealed Senate immigration bill.
Sen. Brian Schatz, who's represented Hawaii in the upper chamber since 2012, voiced his frustration with the GOP's response to the newly drafted legislation that only came together after months of bipartisan deliberation.
"I've never seen anything like it," Schatz wrote on X. "They literally demanded specific policy, got it, and then killed it."
Pressed on the matter in a reply, Schatz added that "usually people try to pass laws they like."
The text of the Senate agreement was released on Sunday night, and by Monday evening, nearly half of the Senate Republican caucus had publicly opposed it. Even Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who personally appointed Republican Sen. James Lankford to lead negotiations, reportedly isn't pressing his colleagues into passing it.
The immigration bill may still make it through the Senate, but House Republicans appear to be lockstep in opposition. Just after the contents of the bill were released on Sunday, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson pledged it wouldn't survive.
"If this bill reaches the House, it will be dead on arrival," he wrote.
Previous reporting revealed that former President Donald Trump and the GOP were attempting to kill the bipartisan agreement in an attempt to help him in the 2024 presidential election.
The former commander in chief has since continued to rail against the bill. "Only a fool, or a Radical Left Democrat, would vote for this horrendous Border Bill," he wrote Monday on Truth Social.