If Harris wins, Warren is willing to reconsider the bill

Senator Elizabeth Warren said during a US Senate debate on Thursday that she would be willing to reconsider the same bipartisan immigration measures she voted against earlier this year if they were brought back to the Senate under Kamala Harris’ presidency.

“If it’s the exact same bill, I’m definitely going to take a close look at it, especially if it’s not dead yet,” Warren said in Springfield at a debate hosted by NEPM News and GBH News.

Her comments came in the opening minutes of the debate after her opponent, personal injury lawyer John Deaton, tried to link her to former President Donald Trump’s opposition to legislation that effectively wiped him out.

“Senator Warren took the exact same position as Donald Trump: do nothing,” said Deaton, who has repeatedly said he would have supported the bill even though the vast majority of Republican senators did not after Trump urged them to scrap it.

Warren joined Sen. Ed Markey in February in voting against the foreign aid package, which included a bipartisan border security agreement supported by the Biden administration. Healey and Democratic leaders in the Massachusetts Legislature had also issued a joint statement urging support of the deal. Warren indicated she would have voted no again in May when a separate immigration bill containing the same elements as the February deal was introduced in the Senate.

Their “no” position came after Republicans, who had previously agreed to a bipartisan framework, largely reversed course At the behest of Trump, who wanted to build his presidential campaign on concerns about the southern border.

Deaton has reiterated that he would have voted for the bill even though most Republicans withdrew their support. The vote in February was 49-50, with only four Republicans voting in favor – far fewer than the 60 votes needed to advance.

Warren’s openness to a different look came after Deaton criticized her, as he did during Tuesday’s debate, for opposing the border bill. His attacks were an attempt to undermine Warren’s argument that he would align with Trump and other national Republicans on the issue, an argument that continues to loom large among Massachusetts voters given the rising number of migrants in the state.

“Senator Warren still won’t vote for it because she’s not here enough to know the damage it’s doing to this state,” Deaton said.

After saying she would consider supporting the bill under Harris, Warren made clear that her “no” vote was intended to signal that she wanted to see changes to the legislation since the bill was already doomed. Among the components she wanted, she said, were federal funding for states dealing with the influx of migrants and a path to citizenship for the country’s residents.

“I’ve made it clear in every speech I’ve given and every time I’ve spoken about it that it’s not enough to do half of it – we have to do it right if we’re going to do it,” she said.

Anjali Huynh can be reached at [email protected].