Senate GOP budget blueprint calls for up to $70 billion in new immigration enforcement funding

Senate Republicans on Tuesday unveiled a budget blueprint that will let them craft a filibuster-proof bill to provide immigration enforcement agencies with up to $70 billion to spend through the remainder of President Trump’s term. 

The budget resolution, which the Senate will vote on this week, is the first step in the reconciliation process Republicans are using to get around a Democratic blockade. 

The Department of Homeland Security has been shut down for over two months as Democrats filibustered the annual funding bill, demanding changes to how U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection conduct enforcement after federal agents killed two Americans in Minneapolis. 

Senate Budget Chairman Lindsey Graham said the budget resolution will let Republicans craft a reconciliation bill that fully funds ICE and CBP for 3.5 years, so Democrats cannot block funding for immigration enforcement through the remainder of Mr. Trump’s presidency. 

“The threats to our homeland from radical Islam are only getting more intense,” the South Carolina Republican said. “Now is not the time to defund Border Patrol, and now is certainly not the time to put ICE out of business. These men and women have been dealing with the consequences of the over 11 million illegal immigrants that came to the United States during the Biden administration.”

The budget resolution instructs the Homeland Security and Judiciary committees in both chambers to craft legislation providing the immigration enforcement funding. 

Each panel was given instructions that would let them add up to $70 billion to the deficit. 

That technically allows for up to $140 billion to be spent across both committees, but a Budget Committee aide said the target is a collective $70 billion and that the instructions were written to preserve flexibility, given the committees’ overlapping jurisdictions. 

Republicans last summer used the reconciliation process to provide more than $150 billion for immigration enforcement and border security — money the Trump administration has been using throughout the DHS shutdown to keep ICE and CBP operating. 

The administration also recently tapped that pot of funding to pay other DHS workers who had not been compensated because of the shutdown. 

Mr. Graham said providing more money will ensure that “rational immigration policies that secure our border” continue. 

“We are not going to undo the significant progress made under the leadership of President Trump and Republicans in Congress,” he said. “We are going to improve upon it.”