Republicans hit crunch time on border funding as divisions threaten path forward

A party-style tactic to push legislation through Congress and bypass the filibuster in the Senate has become a dumping ground for Republican legislative priorities throughout the year.

Now Democrats are refusing to fund immigration operations while Republicans are once again preparing a budget compromise package. The hard part will be getting enough of the GOP on the same page to craft a bill that can pass and survive the stringent rules that support the process.

Republicans used the same process to pass President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” last year. This is a time-consuming, labor-intensive legislative maneuver that could nearly implode and fail unless both the Senate and the House agree on exactly what they want to include.

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As Congress moves closer to ending the ongoing shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Trump formally backed reconciliation this week as a way for Democrats to deny funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

Trump demanded that Republicans bring the bill to his desk by June 1.

“We will work as quickly and as focused as possible to fund our border and ICE agents, and the Radical Left Democrats will not stop us,” Trump said. Real Social.

Still, in the months since the “big, beautiful bill” passed, Republicans have viewed the compromise as a tool to combat fraud, affordability, Trump’s tariffs, additional tax provisions, health care, funding for the Iran war, additional farm spending and election integrity measures.

DHS SHUTDOWN COSTS REPUBLICANS AS FUNDING STRUGGLES NEAR AN END

Senate Majority Leader RS.D. John Thune said Republicans should “keep our expectations realistic.” (Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R.S.D.) warned that if reconciliation is going to work — especially given the limited time frame in which lawmakers have to start and finish the process — Republicans need to “keep our expectations realistic.”

“Our theory behind all of this was to keep this thing as narrow and focused as possible, and that maximizes the speed and support we can get to do that,” Thune said.

“There will probably be some attempts to add something,” he continued. “Of course, there are things that most of us are interested in. But as the president has pointed out, a compromise tool like this that we have to act on hastily is probably not a magnet for all these other issues.”

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told voters at an event in South Carolina this week that he is eyeing two new compromise packages; This package could ease concerns about cramming all of the GOP’s priorities into one big bill.

GOP OPPOSES ‘S–SANDWICH’ DEAL AS ALL EYES ON HOMES TO END DHS CLOSURE

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R.S.C., walks to the Senate chamber to vote after meeting behind closed doors with fellow Republicans on the Homeland Security budget impasse at the Capitol in Washington on March 26, 2026. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo)

“We want to do this quickly — we want to fund ICE, Border Patrol — for as many years as possible,” Graham said. “Then there’s another one coming. I just let you know. There’s another one coming in the fall, and it’s going to be about going after fraud.”

House Republicans spent their last policy retreat earlier this year pushing so-called “reconciliation 2.0”; they were preparing to stuff the package with various provisions that would waste time and make it harder to win support in the Senate; here, strict rules can eliminate suggestions altogether if they don’t follow the rules.

The Republican Study Committee (RSC), which has long called for a second compromise bill, also wants to include proposals that would address affordability concerns.

“We support enacting the president’s agenda to deliver lower costs to working families while also supporting funding for military readiness and Homeland Security through this legislative process,” the RSC Steering Committee said in a statement to Fox News Digital. he said.

Some Republicans are also pushing for inclusion of the latest policy challenge: the Protecting American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act. Voter ID and citizenship verification legislation has no chance of passing the Senate given united Democratic opposition.

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The Senate is also unlikely to rely on reconciliation rules, which only allow provisions that directly affect spending.

“I think we need to keep our eyes a little lower on this compromise bill,” Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., told Fox News Digital. “The goal should be to fund ICE for 10 years – I think that’s the number one thing for us. If we could get some of the edges of the SAVE Act, that would be great, but the parliamentarian won’t let us do the SAVE Act. It’s just impossible.”

Some of the bill’s loudest advocates in the House of Representatives (GOP) acknowledge that adding the SAVINGS Act to the compromise would be difficult; That’s largely because they opted to keep the bill as is and move it through the Senate.

“Look, it’s time for them to walk and talk and filibuster, and let’s make this thing happen,” said Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C. “The American people are watching; they’re putting the pieces together just to get a piece.”