Senate Republicans on Thursday approved a plan to fund Donald Trump’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants through the rest of his term, moving a politically charged Dhs funding fight to the House. The 50-48 vote set the stage for Congress to draft legislation that could direct as much as $140bn to Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection.
All Democrats voted no. Republican senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Rand Paul of Kentucky joined them, but the resolution still cleared the Senate and became an important step in the budget reconciliation process. The House must adopt the resolution before the judiciary and homeland security committees can write the legislation that would carry the money.
The vote matters now because ICE and CBP have been without funding since mid-February, when the Department of Homeland Security shutdown began. A separate measure, approved by the Senate last month with bipartisan support, would fund the rest of DHS operations except ICE and CBP. House Speaker Mike Johnson said Tuesday he would hold a vote on that separate bill if progress was made on the reconciliation package, underscoring how tightly the two tracks are linked.
Democrats spent weeks trying to strike a deal with the Trump administration on immigration operation reforms after federal agents killed two US citizens during an intensive operation in Minneapolis in January, but those talks collapsed. Senate Republicans instead used reconciliation to sidestep a filibuster and advance the larger funding push, while also turning away a set of affordability amendments that drew support from Susan Collins of Maine and Dan Sullivan of Alaska.
John Thune said Republicans had a multi-step process ahead of them, but that in the end they would help ensure the borders were secure and stop Democrats from defunding the agencies. Chuck Schumer said Republicans had shown they were not with families facing higher childcare, grocery, gasoline and electricity costs, but with pumping $140bn toward what he called rogue agencies. The next test is in the House, where lawmakers will decide whether to move the reconciliation plan forward or leave the DHS shutdown split in place.
