WASHINGTON — U.S. House Republicans adopted their budget resolution Wednesday night, clearing the way for the party to pass a bill in the coming weeks that will provide tens of billions in additional funding for immigration enforcement.
The 215-211 party-line vote unlocks the complicated budget reconciliation process that will allow the GOP to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol for the rest of President Donald Trump’s term in office. California independent Rep. Kevin Kiley, formerly a Republican, voted “present.”
The budget resolution was approved by the Senate earlier this month and does not need Trump’s signature.
When combined with a separate Senate-passed bill, which Speaker Mike Johnson has so far refused to put on the House floor for a vote, the two measures are expected to eventually end the shutdown at the Department of Homeland Security that began in mid-February.
House Budget Committee ranking member Rep. Brendan Boyle, D-Pa., said during floor debate that lawmakers should place constraints on immigration agents after they shot and killed two U.S. citizens earlier this year in Minneapolis.
“I think the vast majority of the American people agree with me that we need to have a secure border, but that we cannot have any agency of our government carrying out killings on our streets,” he said.
Republicans removed ICE and Border Patrol funding from the annual DHS appropriations bill after negotiators were unable to broker agreement with Democrats to place new guardrails on immigration activities.
Placing funding for those two agencies in a reconciliation bill allows Republicans to move the measure through the Senate without securing 60 votes to end debate, which would require bipartisanship.
Immigration enforcement debated
House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, said the shutdown isn’t “just about the inconvenience of long lines at airports.”
“This is an unprecedented national security and public safety crisis. And this is the moment we take the keys from the kids and we say no more of this nonsense,” he added.
DHS includes the Coast Guard, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Secret Service and Transportation Security Administration.
Arrington used his debate time to criticize Democrats for demanding constraints on immigration agents, arguing federal officers shouldn’t have to secure a judicial warrant to enter someone’s home to detain a person in the country without proper documentation.
“There is not a Democrat or Republican former commander-in-chief that would ever find that acceptable,” he said.
Democrats also called for federal immigration agents to:
- Wear body cameras.
- Only wear masks to conceal their identities in “extraordinary and unusual circumstances.”
- Not undertake roving patrols.
- Not detain people in certain locations, like houses of worship, schools, or polling places.
- Not engage in racial profiling.
- Not detain or deport American citizens.
Up to $140 billion
The GOP used the reconciliation process last year to enact its “big, beautiful” law, which included an additional $170 billion for immigration and deportation enforcement.
The reconciliation bill Republicans hope to approve in the next month can cost up to $140 billion, according to the instructions in the budget resolution. But GOP lawmakers expect the price tag to come in around $70 billion.
The additional funding is significantly higher than the $10 billion allocation for ICE and the $18.3 billion for Customs and Border Protection that Congress was on track to approve earlier this year. About $550 million of the CBP total was for the Border Patrol.
White House officials have repeatedly urged lawmakers to quickly approve the reconciliation bill that has yet to be released and for House Republicans to clear the Senate-passed DHS appropriations bill for Trump’s signature.
The Office of Management and Budget sent a memo to lawmakers this week notifying them the administration is running out of money to pay DHS employees during the shutdown.
“If this funding is exhausted, the Administration will be unable to pay all DHS personnel beginning in May, which will once again unleash havoc on air travel, leave critical law enforcement officers—including our brave Secret Service agents—and the Coast Guard without paychecks, and jeopardize national security,” it says.
