$70 billion immigration funding package passes in House, win for Johnson

The U.S. House voted 214 to 212 on Tuesday to approve a $70 billion funding package despite Democrats vowing to oppose it. The vote was a test for House Speaker Mike Johnson, who is trying to solidify one of President Donald Trump’s top domestic priorities.

The bill’s passage ends a months-long stalemate over immigration enforcement that has shuttered parts of the Department of Homeland Security.

Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-California, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, called the package a “$70 billion blank check for ICE and border patrol with no strings attached.”

“This comes after Republicans cut health care and food aid and already gave $140 billion to ICE in the Big Ugly Bill,” Aguilar said at a news conference Tuesday, referring to Republicans’ 2025 tax and spending package, more commonly known as the One Big Beautiful Bill. he said. “And it doesn’t do a single thing to help Americans with their daily living expenses.”

All Democrats opposed the measure.

The package, which has broad support among Republican congressional leaders, funds Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, subunits of the Department of Homeland Security, both of which were left out of an earlier spending bill due to opposition from Democrats.

The $70 billion will extend through the end of Trump’s presidency. And it ends a long debate over immigration enforcement policy that began in January after federal law enforcement killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis as part of a crackdown on immigrants and led to a government shutdown.

Trump had called for the bill to reach his desk by June 1. The package left the Senate last Friday. 52-47 votes Democrats have no support.

As of early Tuesday, the fate of the House version was not yet certain, but only a simple majority vote was needed for approval. Johnson struggled to keep the Republican Party in line; Right-wing lawmakers said the measure did not go far enough, and some centrists ahead of tough elections in November voiced concerns about immigration enforcement.

Conservative Republican Rep. Chip Roy of Texas He told the parliamentary leadership He was undecided, according to Politico. Rep. Kevin Kiley, who switched his party affiliation from Republican to independent in March but still caucuses with the GOP, said he opposes the package that does not change immigration enforcement.

Roy voted for the measure, while Kiley opposed it.

“I thought we had a golden opportunity to come together as a Congress to implement these reforms, to rebuild trust, and to focus immigration enforcement where most people think it should be, on people who pose a risk to public safety,” Kiley said before the House of Representatives on Tuesday. he said. “Instead, we do the opposite.”

Republicans have a narrow majority If the House and Democrats unite in opposition, they can risk losing a handful of votes.

As the number of days Congress will be in session before the 2026 midterm elections dwindles, passage of the immigration funding package is a significant hurdle for Johnson to clear as he tries to get Trump’s other priorities across the finish line.

Johnson met with Trump on Tuesday about funding for ICE and CBP, as well as his attempt to expand a section of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 that allows the government to collect the communications of people outside the United States, including when they interact with Americans.

Section 702 of the law will expire on June 12 unless Congress extends it. Privacy hawks on both sides of the aisle have called for changing the policy to protect U.S. citizens from government overreach; That means Johnson must rely on Democratic support to get any extension to the finish line. FISA Section 702 has traditionally had both supporters and foes in every political party.

Meanwhile, Democrats are threatening to withhold support after Trump appointed Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte as director of national intelligence. Pulte has no known prior intelligence experience and has shown a willingness to use his position to go after Trump’s enemies.

“Negotiations before Trump’s announcement regarding Bill Pulte were already at a very sensitive point,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (DY) said at a press conference on Monday. he said. “And then Donald Trump, as he so often does, throws a grenade into these sensitive negotiations by appointing Bill Pulte as director of national intelligence.”

Asked whether he would allow FISA to expire, Jeffries said talks were ongoing “but to get to good-faith negotiations, the effort to install Bill Pulte as acting director of national intelligence needs to be reversed immediately. Then let’s see where we get at the end of the week.”

Some Republicans also called on Trump to step down as Pulte’s director of national intelligence.

“FISA gives us more than 50% of our most sensitive intelligence and has enabled the United States to stop numerous terrorist attacks,” said Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., a moderate who is retiring at the end of this Congress. sent to x On Monday. “Allowing FISA to expire would reflect a nation paralyzed by extreme partisanship and dysfunction. POTUS could help by rescinding plans to appoint Bill Pulte as Acting DNI.”

—Garrett Downs contributed to this story.