History of Failure on Border Policy Hangs Over Current Push in Congress

A bipartisan group of senators holds weeks of closed-door talks to assemble a border and immigration package in response to mounting demands to fix the migrant crisis. The president gets on board despite blowback from the left. The Republican-controlled House is another matter, with hard-right conservatives flexing their muscle and demanding harsh restrictions.

That was the situation in 2014 when a major congressional push to enact far-reaching changes to immigration law appeared tantalizingly close to bearing fruit — only to come to nothing.

And a similar scenario could be playing out today, as lawmakers struggle to find agreement on a new border security measure. After months of private talks, a bipartisan deal is on the brink of emerging from the Democratic-led Senate, but it is unclear whether it will have enough G.O.P. support to advance — and House Republicans, egged on by former President Donald J. Trump, are pre-emptively threatening to tank it.

As they look back, those involved in past negotiations say it is frustrating that they have come so close so many times to enacting major legislation only to see it fly off the rails — not once, but twice in the past two decades. Had the proposals become law, they say, the border would be secure today, and the nation could have moved past the constantly raging immigration fight.

“If we’d have done any of those bills, we wouldn’t have these problems today,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina and a charter member of numerous “gangs” of lawmakers that have repeatedly and unsuccessfully tried to strike border deals, notably in 2007 and 2014.