Nancy Pelosi began Thursday by promising to remember the children. By midafternoon, she forgot them—and called it a “battle cry.”

While much of the media was focused on the first Democratic debate, the Speaker of the House was trying to figure out what to do with the multibillion-dollar border aid bill that had passed the Senate the previous evening with significant bipartisan support. Unlike the House’s version, it contained Defense Department funding and, more notably, funding to address pay shortfalls and overtime costs for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The Senate bill, moreover, did not reinstate aid to Northern Triangle countries the Trump administration cut off earlier in the month. Finally, there was no mention of the numerous items that Pelosi had added in negotiations with House Progressives earlier in the week. Those provisions included requirements that Customs and Border Patrol improve the conditions under which migrants are being held, with better responses to medical emergencies, and proper nutrition, hygiene, and personnel training. In Pelosi’s estimation, the Senate bill did not go far enough to address concerns about the deplorable conditions in U.S. facilities at the border.

When anyone asks me what the three most important issues facing the Congress, I always give the same answer:



-The children

-The children

-The children



We have a duty to do right by the children on the border & make necessary changes to the Senate’s border supplemental. — Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) June 27, 2019

Pelosi and House Democratic leadership had planned to hold the line, amending the Senate bill with their own priorities so they could force negotiations in conference. In a lengthy phone call with Mike Pence, who is overseeing talks while President Trump is in Japan for the G20 summit, Pelosi suggested a number of potential fixes, while the vice president insisted the House take up a clean version of the Senate’s bill.



Pelosi had spent much of the week wrangling her caucus, horse-trading with members across the ideological spectrum in an attempt to keep them in line. But she was in a difficult bind, with progressives advocating for a series of amendments—including cutting funding for ICE—and skittish moderates fretting over the changes. It was, as Politico reported, “perhaps the roughest stretch of Pelosi’s speakership, with clashes between the left and moderate wings on full display and no clear escape to the chaos.”



But the party’s moderate, corporate-friendly Blue Dog caucus found a way out. Eighteen rebelled against the Speaker, pledging to block the bill if Pelosi brought it to the floor. Stephanie Murphy, who leads the Blue Dog Coalition, told Politico that they had a “significant number” of rebels, while one unnamed representative said “We’re going to see if we can kill it.” These members were most concerned about cuts to ICE, despite the agency’s central role in the country’s brutal incarceration and deportation machine.

