As you’ve probably heard, Republicans are refusing to allocated any more money for Ukraine unless and until they get something on border security from the Biden administration. As of a few days ago, negotiations toward a deal seemed to be going nowhere fast. Yesterday there was a report at Politico that the Biden administration was making a last ditch effort to turn things around.

Top Biden administration officials are scrambling to keep border talks alive as a deal with Senate Republicans over Ukraine funding has grown increasingly elusive, four people familiar with the talks said.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, White House deputy chief of staff Natalie Quillian and Shuwanza Goff, director of the White House office of legislative affairs, on Tuesday afternoon met on the Hill with Senate negotiators — Sens. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) and James Lankford (R-Okla.). They also met with staff from the offices of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell…

The White House is “hustling,” said one of the four people, all of whom were granted anonymity to discuss private conversations. “They’re pretty desperate at this point.”

The offer from the Biden administration which seems to have captures some attention was a new expansion of an expedited removal process and potentially a tougher first-interview process for asylum seekers. It’s a sign of how radioactive these ideas are on the left that as soon as Politico heard about it the White House denied everything:

“The White House has not signed off on any particular policy proposals or final agreements, and reporting that ascribes determined policy positions to the White House is inaccurate,” said a White House spokesperson.

They can deny it all they want but clearly the White House made some kind of offer because today the Washington Post is reporting that the deal is suddenly showing signs of life.

After weeks of flagging negotiations, the White House has floated a proposal to allow border officials to expel migrants without asylum screenings on days when border crossings are particularly high, senators and aides said.

Key details remain to be fleshed out, including the number of migrant crossings that would trigger that new power. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who has been involved in the negotiations, said Wednesday that he believed the authority should kick in on days when crossings reach 3,000 or less, while some Democrats prefer a higher number of 5,000 crossings or more before agents can turn away migrants…

Democrats have previously said they are open to raising the standard for granting an interview based on a “credible fear” of persecution, which would probably reduce the number of asylum cases. Another proposal would allow immigration authorities to more easily deport migrants who lose their asylum hearings.

The details of this aren’t clear yet, probably because they haven’t been worked out, but the general idea of setting a threshold beyond which we just start expelling people seems like a good one. In theory at least, that might help keep the influx more manageable. But under Title 42 we had a situation where people were caught and expelled across the border back to Mexico and then many would simply try again a day or a week later. So as a means of discouraging people it was pretty weak. It got to the point where a quarter of the people being detained at the border had been detained before. That doesn’t sound like much of an improvement.

Raising the standard for the “credible fear” interviews seems like something that could make a more substantial difference. In fact, I’m surprised the Biden administration has floated it. As it stands, there is already a backlog of over a million cases which means wait times to go before a judge for an asylum claim is 5-7 years. Knowing this, migrants claim asylum to game the system. It’s a way to legally enter the country for years at a time. And once a judge eventually rules on their case, many of those ordered to leave simply stay. Speeding up the process and actually deporting people who are found to be ineligible would do a lot to discourage more people from trying to cheat.

Clearly the White House is afraid of angering open border progressives but this is their best and probably only chance to a) get a deal for Ukraine funding and b) help take a potent GOP issue off the table for 2024. Depending on the result, it may not take the issue off the table but it could help blunt it somewhat, which seems like something the White House should be interested in doing.

Biden came into office promising to undo everything Trump had done at the border. It took a while but he has mostly succeeded in that and it has been a disaster. The White House should ask itself how many million migrants it wants to see at the border by the end of this fiscal year. Those figures should be out right before the election.