Senate Republicans on Thursday approved a budget resolution to fund Donald Trump’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants for the rest of his term, pushing ahead with a plan that could steer as much as $140bn to Immigration and Customs and Border Protection.
The measure passed 50-48 after a vote-a-rama that let lawmakers offer amendments. All Democrats opposed it, joined by Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Rand Paul of Kentucky, while Democratic amendments focused on grocery prices and out-of-pocket healthcare costs also failed except for support from Sen. Susan Collins of Maine and Sen. Dan Sullivan of Alaska.
The resolution is part of the budget reconciliation process, the fast-track route Republicans are using to try to avoid a Democratic filibuster. It comes while ICE and Customs and Border Protection have gone without funding since mid-February, when the DHS shutdown began, leaving the Trump administration to press ahead without a settled financial path for the agencies at the center of its immigration crackdown.
House Speaker Mike Johnson said on Tuesday that if progress is made on the reconciliation bill, he will hold a vote on a separate measure to fund the rest of the Department of Homeland Security outside ICE and CBP. The Senate approved that separate DHS funding measure last month with bipartisan support, and Johnson said then, “Sequencing is important. We have to make sure we don’t isolate and make an orphan out of key agencies of the department.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune cast the vote as a step in a broader push. “We have a multi-step process ahead of us, but at the end Republicans will have helped ensure that America’s borders are secure and prevented Democrats from defunding these important agencies,” he said. Schumer, the Senate Democratic leader, framed the vote as a rejection of household priorities, saying, “Tonight, Senate Republicans showed the American people where they stand: not for families struggling with the high costs of childcare, groceries and gasoline, electricity, but for pumping $140bn towards rogue agencies.”
The fight now turns to whether Republicans can move both tracks without one collapsing the other. If Johnson follows through, the House could soon face a split decision: money for ICE and Border Protection on one side, and the rest of DHS on the other.
