House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) speaks during a press conference after the House Republican Conference caucus meeting at the Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington, Wednesday, May 13, 2026.
Bill Clark | CQ-Roll Call Inc. | Getty Images
The U.S. House of Representatives has voted on a $70 billion bill to fund immigration enforcement agencies, poised to send it to President Donald Trump’s desk after months of partisan fighting.
The package would provide funding to Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, two branches of the Department of Homeland Security that were left out of the previous spending bill over Democratic opposition, ending a long debate over immigration enforcement policies that began in January and led to a government shutdown.
A final House vote to pass the immigration funding measure could come as early as Tuesday.
The Senate passed the package early Friday morning on a 52-47 vote. It would fund immigration enforcement agencies until the end of President Trump’s term. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) was the only Republican to vote against the bill.
“We were forced to use the reconciliation process because Democrats opposed funding Border Patrol and ICE during the appropriations process, effectively shutting down Border Patrol amid a growing threat to our nation,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said in a statement Friday after the bill passed. Graham was referring to the budget reconciliation process that allows legislation to pass in the Senate on a party-line vote.
“In less than two years, President Trump took our border from the most broken border in history to the most secure, and the legislation we passed today will lock in those gains for the rest of his term,” Graham continued.
Democrats have opposed funding for both ICE and CBP since two civilians were killed by federal law enforcement in Minneapolis during a surge in immigration enforcement in January. After more than two months of partial government shutdown, Republicans were forced to rely on the budget reconciliation process.
Budget reconciliation can only be used for spending-related measures, but they require only 50 votes to pass in the Senate, instead of the 60 normally needed to get past a filibuster. The bill only requires a simple majority in the House, and the Rules Committee will begin considering it Monday afternoon.
With a razor-thin House majority, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) will need near-unanimous support to advance the bill, which is expected to receive little if any Democratic support.
President Trump had originally called for the package to be on the table by June 1, but its fate became uncertain after the president announced in late May that he was creating a $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund, without consultation with Congress, to compensate Americans unfairly targeted by the government, potentially including the January 6 defendants.
The proposal faced bipartisan opposition and nearly derailed the reconciliation process. Amid growing anger among Republicans, the Senate canceled a vote on the bill scheduled for late May and left town.
Still, on Thursday, Democrats’ attempt to add an amendment to the package to block President Trump’s creation of the fund as part of a marathon process known as Vote-a-Rama on Reconciliation failed. Only three Republican senators joined Democrats in trying to block the fund.
“The entire country can now see the truth. Republicans fought tooth and nail to protect Donald Trump and his slush fund, but did nothing to cut costs for working Americans,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said in a statement Friday.
