ICE immigration enforcement funding on track to Trump’s desk

The U.S. House is poised to vote on a $70 billion package to fund immigration enforcement agencies and send the measure to President Donald Trump’s desk after months of partisan wrangling.

The package would fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, two subunits of the Department of Homeland Security that were left out of an earlier spending bill due to opposition from Democrats, ending a long debate over immigration enforcement policy that began in January and led to a government shutdown.

The final House vote to pass the immigration funding package could come as soon as Tuesday.

The Senate passed the package early Friday morning. 52-47 votes. This will fund immigration enforcement agencies through the end of Trump’s presidency. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, was the only Republican to vote against it.

Senate budget panel chairman RS.C. “We were forced to use the reconciliation process because Democrats — during the appropriations process — objected to giving any money to the Border Patrol and ICE, effectively shutting down our border security at a time when threats to the nation were increasing,” Sen. Lindsey Graham said in a statement Friday after the measure passed. he said. Graham was referring to the budget reconciliation process, which allows legislation to pass the Senate on party-line votes.

Graham continued: “In less than two years, President Trump took the border from the most broken border in history to the safest. The bill we passed today locks those gains into the remainder of his term.”

Democrats have opposed funding for both ICE and CBP over the killing of two civilians by federal law enforcement in Minneapolis in January amid increased immigration enforcement. A partial government shutdown that lasted more than two months followed and Republicans were forced to turn to the budget reconciliation process.

Budget reconciliation can only be used for spending-related measures, but it requires only 50 votes to pass the Senate instead of the 60 votes normally required to overcome a filibuster. The measure needs only a simple majority in the House. Rules Committee The evaluation will begin on Monday afternoon.

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., who holds a slim majority in the House, will need near-unanimous support to advance the measure, which is expected to receive little or no support from Democrats.

Trump had initially requested the package On his desk until June 1but its fate was unclear in late May after the president announced, without consulting Congress, a $1.8 billion “counterproliferation” fund to compensate Americans wrongly targeted by the government, potentially including January 6 defendants.

The proposal faced bipartisan backlash and nearly derailed the reconciliation process. The Senate canceled a vote on the package planned for late May and left town as anger grew within GOP ranks.

Still, Democrats’ attempt on Thursday to add an amendment to the package that would prevent Trump from creating the fund (as part of the marathon process known as a vote-a-rama that accompanies the compromise) fell short. Only three Republican senators joined their Democratic colleagues in attempting to block the funding.

“Now the entire country can see the truth: Republicans fought like hell to protect Donald Trump and his slush fund but did not lift a finger to help working Americans lower their costs,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-Y) said Friday. he said.