WASHINGTON – Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said Tuesday an agreement has been reached on major elements of a nearly $500 billion coronavirus aid package for small businesses, including additional help for hospitals and virus testing.

Schumer said talks among Democratic and Republican leaders, along with Trump administration officials, including White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, produced a breakthrough agreement on the package.

“We have a deal, and I think we’ll pass it today,” Schumer said on CNN.

He cautioned that staff members are still “dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s.”

A Tuesday afternoon Senate session could provide an opportunity to quickly pass the legislation if it comes together quickly, though the Democratic-controlled House is planning on calling lawmakers to Washington for a vote later in the week.

A senior Senate GOP leadership aide cautioned that the measure was not finalized and that Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., had yet to publicly sign off on it.

Schumer said Meadows and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin were in close contact with McConnell during the talks.

“Every major issue was resolved,” Schumer said. “So yes, I believe we have a deal.”

Most of the funding, more than $300 billion, would go to boost a small-business payroll loan program that ran out of money last week. Additional help would be given to hospitals, and billions more would be spent to boost testing for the virus, a key step in building the confidence required to reopen state economies.

The emerging draft measure – originally designed by Republicans as a $250 billion stopgap to replenish the payroll subsidies for smaller businesses – has grown into the second largest of the four coronavirus response bills so far. Democratic demands have caused the measure to balloon, though they likely will be denied the money they want to help struggling state and local governments.

The Senate met for a brief pro forma session Monday that could have provided a window to act on the upcoming measure under fast-track procedures requiring unanimous consent to advance legislation, but it wasn’t ready in time.

McConnell set up the Tuesday session in the hope that an agreement will be finished by then. McConnell warned, however, that he wouldn’t know whether the Senate could pass it by voice vote until the measure is unveiled.

The House has announced a vote on the pending package could come later in the week, possibly on Thursday, according to a schedule update from Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md. Hoyer also announced that the chamber will vote on a temporary rules change to permit limited proxy voting during the COVID-19 crisis.

With small-business owners reeling during the coronavirus outbreak that has shuttered much economic activity, the administration has been pressing for an immediate replenishment of the paycheck protection program. But Democrats sought additional money in a replay of the tactical jockeying that caused the recently-passed rescue measure to spiral to about $2 trillion.

Talks have dragged as the two sides have quarreled over the design of a nationwide testing regime, among other unsettled pieces.

Democrats were rebuffed in a request for another $150 billion in aid to revenue-strapped state governments but did win the ability to used recently appropriated federal funds to cover revenue losses from the economic shutdown instead of using it only for costs related to suppressing COVID-19.

The administration said further state aid will come in the next relief bill. There’s also pressure to help cities with populations of less than 500,000 that were shut out of the massive $2 trillion relief bill that passed last month.

Schumer said Monday that he had talked to Federal Reserve Board Chairman Jerome Powell and that Powell said the Fed is working to open up the Main Street Lending program to nonprofits and municipal governments.

Immigration

President Donald Trump said he will sign an executive order “to temporarily suspend immigration into the United States” because of the coronavirus.

“In light of the attack from the Invisible Enemy, as well as the need to protect the jobs of our GREAT American Citizens, I will be signing an Executive Order to temporarily suspend immigration into the United States!” Trump tweeted late Monday.

He offered no details about which immigration programs might be affected by the order.

National security adviser Robert O’Brien on Tuesday cast the president’s announcement as a move to protect the American people’s health. O’Brien said the temporary halt to immigration would not be “dissimilar” to limits on travel to the U.S. from China that Trump put in place in January.

“We’re trying to do everything, the president’s trying to do everything he can to put the health of the American people first during this crisis,” O’Brien said on Fox News Channel. “So this is one step. It’s not dissimilar to the restrictions on travel from China that he implemented back on Jan. 29 at the very outset of this public health crisis.”

O’Brien said the administration believes those travel restrictions saved lives.