.ON DECEMBER 6TH Republicans declined President Joe Biden's ask for $106bn of funding, a lot of it to aid arm Ukraine, on the manner that its own provisions to protect America's southerly perimeter did certainly not progress sufficient. A group of legislators currently seem near to striking a bipartisan deal on immigration policies, thought to feature harder plans as the cost of Republican support. But it looks probably to become finished off in your home of Reps. On January 14th Mike Johnson, your house speaker, mentioned that significant perimeter reform would must wait up until a Republican politician was head of state. Yet on January 17th, after a meeting along with Mr Biden, he hinted that he may be available to a trade-off after all. Is actually one very likely?