Senate Republicans advance $140bn plan to fund Trump immigration crackdown amid DHS shutdown | Donald Trump
Senate Republicans on Thursday approved a plan that would fund Donald Trump’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants for the remainder of his term and pave the way for an end to the ongoing shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
The budget resolution, passed on a near party-line vote early in the morning, sets the stage for Congress to craft legislation that would allocate as much as $140 billion to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), two agencies at the forefront of Trump’s mass deportation agenda that have remained unfunded since mid-February, when the DHS shutdown began.
The budget bill was approved by a vote of 50 to 48; All Democrats were in opposition, as were Republicans, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Rand Paul of Kentucky. The advance is a key step in the budget reconciliation process that Republicans are using to avoid filibuster by Democrats who refused to vote to fund ICE or CBP after federal agents killed two U.S. citizens during a massive immigration operation in Minneapolis in January.
“We have a multi-step process ahead of us, but in the end, Republicans will help secure America’s borders and prevent Democrats from defunding these important institutions,” said Senate Republican Majority Leader John Thune.
The resolution must now be passed in the House of Representatives, before the chambers’ judiciary and homeland security committees can begin work on writing legislation that would formally free up funding for the two agencies.
Mike Johnson, the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, said that if progress is made on the compromise bill, he will vote on a separate measure that the Senate approved with bipartisan support last month to allocate funds for DHS operations outside of ICE and CBP.
“Sequencing is important. We need to make sure we don’t isolate the department’s key institutions and orphan them,” Johnson said at a press conference on Tuesday.
After the killings in Minneapolis, Democrats spent weeks trying to broker a deal with the Trump administration on reforms to immigration enforcement, including banning federal agents from wearing masks and stopping people without warrants. These talks failed, and Republicans turned to unilaterally funding ICE and CBP.
“Tonight, Senate Republicans showed the American people where they stand: Not on families struggling with the high costs of child care, food, gasoline and electricity, but on pumping $140 billion into rogue institutions,” Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer said after the budget resolution was passed.
The Senate passed the measure only after a process known as a “vote-a-rama” in which lawmakers can propose changes to the bill.
Democrats used it as an opportunity to propose changes, including changes to grocery prices and out-of-pocket health care costs, focused on the affordability message they hope will win support from voters in the midterm elections.
Susan Collins of Maine and Dan Sullivan of Alaska — two incumbents seen as in danger of losing re-election in November — voted in favor of these changes, but ultimately failed to gain enough support to move forward.
