U.S. Senate Republicans voted Thursday to move forward with a $70 billion plan to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Protection over the next three years, ignoring Democratic demands for guardrails for immigration enforcement officers and their work.
Lawmakers voted 50-48 in the early hours to adopt a non-binding budget resolution and send it to the U.S. House of Representatives, a key step in efforts to end the partial shutdown that has plagued the Department of Homeland Security since mid-February.
Two Republicans, Sens. Rand Paul and Lisa Murkowski, opposed the bill.
If the resolution is adopted by the House, Congressional committees will be able to begin hammering out details on how the $70 billion will be spent in a separate bill that President Donald Trump must sign. The new funding is expected to occur during President Trump’s term, which ends in January 2029.
With Democrats adamantly opposing the funding initiative, Republicans in a separate bill plan to adopt a rarely used procedure known as budget reconciliation, which would allow some budget bills to bypass Democratic opposition in the Senate.
Passing such a bill would require only a simple majority in a chamber of 100 members, rather than the usual 60-vote supermajority. Republicans hold a 53-47 majority.
Funding for most of DHS ran out more than nine weeks ago as Democrats pressured Republicans and the White House to accept new restrictions on ICE and the Border Patrol, which operate under DHS command.
After two Americans were shot and killed by immigration agents in Minneapolis, Democrats insisted that ICE and Border Patrol be subject to the same operating rules as police forces across the country, including a requirement that agents obtain a judicial warrant before entering people’s homes.
But weeks of negotiations ended in a stalemate.
The Senate then passed a bill to fund DHS operations outside of ICE and Border Patrol. But the bill has stalled in the House, with hardline Republicans demanding funding for those two groups as well.
“Vote-a-rama” lasted nearly six hours
Last year, Republicans passed a bill that would provide these two agencies with about $130 billion in funding, separate from their annual budget and the $70 billion currently moving through Congress.
The Senate action followed a roughly six-hour “Vote-a-Rama” session that began late Wednesday, with votes on a series of amendments.
Eight months before November’s midterm elections that will determine which party controls Congress in the final years of President Donald Trump’s term, Democrats used the session to try to portray the Republican Party as out of touch with American families and challenged by rising gas and health care costs.
Republicans accused Democrats of trying to “defund” critical immigration and border protection efforts.
Democrats introduced more than a dozen amendments aimed at reducing out-of-pocket health care costs, restoring food assistance to low-income Americans, blocking health insurance coverage, increasing funding for school lunches and child care, protecting consumers from rising prices due to tariffs and the Iran war, and lowering electricity bills for working people.
Both failed, but they attracted the support of some Republicans, including Sen. Susan Collins of Maine and Sen. Dan Sullivan of Alaska, who face challenges in re-election in November.
A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll found that while more than half of Americans are less likely to support a candidate who supports President Trump’s approach to deporting immigrants, a similar majority say their household finances have been hurt by rising gas prices.
Health care costs top the list of household expenses that voters think Congress should focus on most, according to polling data.
The Senate voted 98-0 to adopt a Republican amendment by Senate Budget Chairman Lindsey Graham that would create a deficit-neutral fund to support ICE’s efforts to arrest, detain, and expedite deportations of adults convicted of rape, murder, or sexual abuse of minors after entering the country illegally.
Lawmakers rejected other Republican amendments that would have required proof of citizenship for voting and other election restrictions, banned Medicaid funding for transgender surgeries for minors, and slashed foreign aid, science and education programs that fund ICE and Border Patrol.
