Sens. Josh Hawley, Eric Schmitt and Roger Marshall were never likely to support a bipartisan border deal.
Hawley, a Missouri Republican, made it clear from the outset of serious bipartisan negotiations last fall, dismissing the effort as an attempt to justify sending more military aid to Ukraine.
Schmitt and Marshall said they would be open to a deal, but only if it looked like a hardline border bill passed by House Republicans, which Senate Democrats called a non-starter.
So when bipartisan Senate negotiators on Sunday released a $118 billion deal to give military aid to Taiwan, Ukraine and Israel alongside a deal to provide more resources to secure the southern border and ease the immigration process, the three Republican senators from Missouri and Kansas were leading the charge to kill the deal.
The bill failed a key procedural vote in the Senate on Wednesday – shattering months of bipartisan work to reach a border compromise that included stricter policies on asylum that Republicans have generally championed with few major concessions for Democrats. The bill contained no pathway to citizenship for those brought illegally to the United States as children, for instance.