Senate Republicans took the first step to pass a narrow partisan budget bill that would fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and parts of Customs and Border Protection for more than three years on Tuesday, after a monthslong standoff in the Senate.
Sen. Lindsey Graham introduced a budget resolution that directs Congress to spend up to $140 billion to fund the two White House priorities. The Senate voted to introduce the measure 52-48 on Tuesday evening, kicking off up to 50 hours of debate. Senate Republican leaders are aiming to wrap up debate and amendment votes and hold a final vote by the end of the week.
The Department of Homeland Security has been shut down since Feb. 14. Senate Republicans will pass the bill along party lines using the reconciliation process. The total price of the package is expected to land in the neighborhood of $70 billion to $80 billion.
“Republicans are doing something that must be done quickly, and that our Democrat colleagues are trying to prevent us from doing,” Graham said in a statement Tuesday. “That something is simple: fully fund Border Patrol and ICE at a time of great threat to the United States.”
Trending
The funds would cover the two agencies through the end of the Trump presidency.
Republicans moved to introduce the legislation after Senate Democrats blocked funding for DHS for several months following the killings of two American citizens in Minneapolis by immigration enforcement agents.
President Donald Trump has said that he wants to pass the reconciliation package by June 1 — an ambitious timeline that has spurred Republican leaders to keep the package as narrow as possible.
That idea has irked some in the Republican ranks who want to use the reconciliation bill to pass measures to help with affordability, especially ahead of the midterm elections. Leaders, however, have stuck to their plan.
“Some of our colleagues have good ideas about how to approach it, but in the end … it’s all about the math. It’s what can you get 50 and 218 for, and in this environment that’s going to be challenging, to say the least,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters on Monday. “[I]f there are good ideas out there and they’re the kinds of proposals that can ensure that we have the votes necessary to get the basic things we need to get done with this bill done, I’m open to hearing about it. I think right now, the goal is to ensure that those DHS agencies are funded.”
DHS has been shut down for 67 days. Senate Republicans twice passed a measure to fund the non-ICE and Border Protection parts of the department — including the Transportation Security Administration — but it has languished in the House.
Speaker Mike Johnson on Tuesday indicated that the lower chamber does not plan to bring up the DHS appropriations bill until the Senate passes the reconciliation bill entirely.
“The sequencing is important. We’ve got to make sure that we don’t isolate and, as I say, make an orphan out of key agencies of the department,” Johnson told reporters. “And there’s some concern on our side that if you do the bulk of the department first before that, and they could be left out, we can’t allow for that. So, we’re working through that. The sequencing is important, and the language of the legislation is important as always, and we’ll get there.”
Senate Republicans had been under the impression the House would move on the appropriations bill once they pass the budget resolution. That is expected to happen by the end of the week.
“That’s pushing it back,” Thune retorted, saying that there isn’t enough money in the administration to cover the department for that long. He also noted that the White House is pushing to get the appropriations package done in the House sooner rather than later.
After the Senate moved to fund the remaining agencies through the reconciliation process, the Trump administration began paying some DHS workers with the funds passed in last year’s reconciliation bill to address staffing shortages and airport delays across the country. The administration said that funding would run out at the end of the week, prompting Senate Republicans to move quickly on the package.
Senate Democrats are expected to prolong the process by introducing several amendments to the bill, including the 10 demands the caucus had initially presented as its requirements to fund the Department of Homeland Security.
“You’re going to see a lot of the ICE-related reforms put into amendments,” Sen. Tim Kaine told reporters on Monday. “We’re looking at other amendments, too, that may be connected to ICE. How the Trump immigration policies are damaging the economy, how they’re damaging industry sectors. … We are looking at a broad gauge set of amendments.”
This story was updated with new information.
Authors
