Which Republican Senators voted for Biden's 2021 Immigration Legislation

1. What “Biden’s 2021 immigration legislation” refers to — and what the reporting actually covers

Reporting in the supplied documents conflates multiple efforts: President Biden’s broad 2021 proposal (the U.S. Citizenship Act introduced in January 2021) and later bipartisan Senate border packages negotiated in 2024. The 2021 proposal sought sweeping reform including pathways for roughly 11 million people, but the sources emphasize that it faced a steep uphill climb in the Senate and that Democrats would need about 10 Republican votes to advance it ^{[3] [4]}. The more immediate, widely reported fights in 2024 centered on a bipartisan “border bill” or “Border Act” tied to foreign aid and supplemental funding ^{[5] [6]}.

2. How many Republicans actually voted for the 2024 bipartisan Border Act effort

Multiple sources say only a very small number of Senate Republicans supported the bipartisan border compromise. Reporting by The Hill and other contemporaneous pieces says “only four Republicans” voted for the deal in a February procedural moment, and that later attempts died on the floor with the measure failing 50–49 and “all but four Republicans opposed it” ^{[1] [2]}. FactCheck and the American Immigration Council pieces likewise describe broad Republican opposition even to a version with enforcement provisions ^{[7] [8]}.

3. Who those Republican votes likely were — what sources say and do not say

Available sources repeatedly name Senator James Lankford (R-Okla.) as a lead Republican architect of the bipartisan negotiations ^{[9] [1]}. Beyond Lankford, the supplied material does not consistently list the other individual Republican senators who voted for the package in the roll-call described. Sources do not provide a definitive, complete roll-call naming each of the four Republicans in that February vote within the excerpted documents I was given — they only report the total number and Lankford’s role ^{[1] [2] [9]}. Therefore, a full list of names is not found in current reporting supplied here.

4. Why most Republicans opposed the compromise — motives and political framing

Sources explain several motives for Republican opposition: rank-and-file concerns that the package would limit executive authority to restrict migration, preference for the House GOP’s tougher HR 2 benchmark, fear of political blowback if the deal could not become law in the House, and strategic willingness to wait for a future Republican administration to pursue stricter measures ^{[10] [9]}. Former President Trump’s opposition and Republican leaders framing the votes as a political stunt further hardened GOP resistance ^{[1] [7]}. Advocacy groups on both sides also criticized the bill — immigrant-rights groups for being punitive, conservatives for not going far enough — which narrowed the bipartisan coalition ^{[2] [7]}.

5. What the bills actually did — key policy tradeoffs that affected votes

The bipartisan Senate package combined expanded enforcement authority (including expedited removal-like tools), added funding for immigration processing and detention capacity, and contained some legal-pathway expansions (e.g., visas, Afghan adjustment provisions). Analysts warned those enforcement mechanisms could let the administration rapidly deport many migrants, while immigration advocates said the bill didn’t include sufficient relief for people already in the U.S. ^{[6] [7] [5]}. Those mixed provisions help explain why some Republicans accepted it as hawkish enough and why some Democrats and immigrant advocates rejected it as insufficient or dangerous ^{[7] [2]}.

6. Limitations in the public record provided and implications for conclusions

The supplied sources reliably report vote totals (small number of Republicans in favor, later failure at 50–49) and identify at least one Republican negotiator (Lankford) but do not give a complete named roll-call of the specific Republican senators who voted “yes” in the cited procedural or substantive votes ^{[1] [2] [9]}. Because the documents conflate 2021 proposals with 2024 Senate border negotiations, it is important not to assert that the same set of senators voted for a single “Biden 2021 bill” — available sources do not mention an explicit Republican roll-call for the 2021 U.S. Citizenship Act passage in the Senate, and that bill faced noted Republican resistance ^{[3] [4]}.

7. Bottom line for readers

Reporting supplied here shows that bipartisanship on immigration in the Senate was minimal: the high-profile compromise attracted only a few Republican votes (reported as four in key moments) and ultimately failed to reach the 60-vote threshold needed for cloture, losing 50–49 on the floor ^{[1] [2]}. One named Republican negotiator was James Lankford; however, the specific identities of all Republican “yes” voters in the roll-calls discussed are not listed in the current set of sources ^{[9] [1]}.