Senate Republicans pushed their immigration funding plan forward early Thursday, adopting a budget blueprint after an all-night vote series that sets up billions for ICE and Border Patrol while sidelining Democrats.
Senate Republicans adopted their budget resolution, which tees up funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol, and effectively cuts congressional Democrats out of the process entirely.
It’s the first major step toward unlocking the budget reconciliation process, which Republicans are diving into once again after Democrats refused to fund ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) without stringent reforms.
Despite Republicans largely being on the same page on the approach, Sens. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, voted against the budget blueprint.
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Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., panned Republicans for moving to spend billions in taxpayer dollars rather than addressing rising costs.
“America is crying out for relief from high costs, and you’re here adding $140 billion to an agency that nobody — two groups — Border Patrol and ICE, that nobody respects in this country,” Schumer said.
Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, R-Wyo., countered that ICE and Border Patrol agents weren’t the problem, “Democrats are.”
“Today’s Democrats are a rogue and radical party,” Barrasso said. “You deserve better than reckless Democrat hostage-taking. You deserve the tools and support from Congress necessary to carry out the mission Congress has given you. Our country depends on you.”
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The Senate GOP’s plan would fund both agencies for the remainder of President Donald Trump’s term. Republicans want to front-load the agencies with over $70 billion out of concern that Democrats would never agree to allocate taxpayer dollars to them again.
Lawmakers dashed through amendment vote after amendment vote, with Democrats teeing up several add-ons to the budget blueprint designed to attack Republicans.
Several of the Democratic amendments targeted affordability and economic issues in the country, and all failed along party lines.
But the night wasn’t without a dash of drama.
Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., who has pushed to broaden the scope of the forthcoming reconciliation package despite GOP leadership and the White House wanting to keep it narrowly tailored to immigration enforcement, threatened to derail the process.
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He wanted to include a swath of amendments that ultimately wouldn’t have been considered germane to the resolution and were destined to fail without support from Democrats. One of those add-ons was a version of the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act.
“If you don’t want to vote for it, don’t,” Kennedy said. “All I ask you is to think about it, to trust our Rules committee, to follow your heart, but take your brain with you. Because the American people, both Democrats and Republicans and independents, are questioning our elections.”
His amendment ultimately failed.
Meanwhile, adoption of the budget resolution doesn’t immediately kick off reconciliation. The House will now have to adopt the same blueprint or modify it — the latter would kick the resolution back to the Senate and trigger another marathon vote session.
While Republicans are moving forward with the process in response to Democrats not budging on ICE and CBP funding, some are grappling with the ramifications it could have for funding the agencies and, more broadly, the rest of the federal government going forward.
Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., told Fox News Digital that she was “disappointed that we are where we are, but I understand the need to fund these portions of this agency.”
“I’m really disheartened, because I think it fundamentally changes the way that we move forward with appropriations, and not for the better,” Britt said. “And I’m not for that at all.”
