Senate Republicans clear go-it-alone path for ICE funding

Senate Republicans green-lit their party-line plan early Thursday morning to send tens of billions of dollars to immigration enforcement agencies in the coming years.

Senators voted 50-48 to adopt a budget blueprint for legislation that could fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Border Patrol and other agencies for the remainder of President Donald Trump’s term. The vote was almost entirely on party lines, with GOP Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska the only lawmakers to break ranks.

The vote just after 3:30 a.m. completed the first step in the GOP’s plan to approve roughly $70 billion in additional funding without help from Democrats, who have refused to fund the immigration agencies without a slate of new restrictions on how they operate.

“Our Democratic colleagues have refused to provide funding for the Border Patrol and ICE,” Senate Budget Chair Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said ahead of the Senate’s late-night session. “This needs to be done.”

As part of an hours-long overnight marathon of amendment votes, Republicans rejected Democratic attempts to broaden the budget framework to fund school meals, increase federal spending on child care and reverse cuts to SNAP food benefits Republicans enacted last summer in their tax-cuts-focused megabill.

“Republicans could easily do this, but they’d rather spend our tax dollars on lawless immigration enforcement and illegal wars,” Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) said on the Senate floor after offering the school meals amendment. “Budgets are about priorities.”

The resolution still needs to clear the House, where some GOP lawmakers, including Budget Chair Jodey Arrington, are still dreaming of expanding the scope of the budget resolution to squeeze in other party priorities before the end of the year.

“If they feel like there’s only one chance, they’re going to want more,” the Texas conservative said in an interview Wednesday. “I have an equal number of people saying, ‘you know, do you really think we’re going to get a third? Should we go ahead and just load it up with more reforms?’”

Any changes to the budget resolution would punt it back to the Senate, eating up floor time and forcing more amendment votes — something Majority Leader John Thune and other Republicans are eager to avoid. Thune is intent on keeping the budget resolution narrow, believing that gives them their best opportunity to quickly send a bill to Trump before the June 1 deadline he set.

Thune told reporters around 4 a.m. that Speaker Mike Johnson hasn't guaranteed the House can adopt the budget resolution in its current form.

"He hasn't, although we've talked," Thune said. "They know it's coming, and you know he's obviously got people who want to expand the scope too. But I think hopefully the White House will be engaged in trying to make sure we get the budget resolution done. ... It doesn't seem like this should be that heavy of a lift, but nothing is easy these days."

During the overnight voting spree, the Senate rejected Sen. John Kennedy’s (R-La.) proposal to add pieces of the SAVE America Act elections bill to the immigration enforcement bill. Four Republican senators voted to reject the plan: Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Murkowski.

Besides the fact that Kennedy’s proposal would expand the scope of the legislation GOP leaders want to keep narrow, many lawmakers in both parties also believe elections policy would not be allowed under the strict rules of the filibuster-skirting process that can only be used to clear policy with a direct impact on the federal budget. 

“Some say it can’t be done,” Kennedy said. “They may be right. But do you know what else? They can’t predict the future.”

Once the budget resolution is adopted in both chambers, congressional committees will proceed to write legislation to actually deliver the funding it sketches out.

House GOP leaders are planning for now to stick with the narrow budget blueprint. Thune and Graham got a boost Wednesday from Trump, who praised the two and urged Republican senators to stay united and reject any potential amendments.

“Republicans must stick together and UNIFY to get this done, and to keep America safe — something which the Democrats don’t care about,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

The overnight “vote-a-rama” is a feature of the party-line budget reconciliation process Republicans are using to skirt a Democratic filibuster in the Senate. It does allow Senate Democrats to force amendment votes on virtually anything they want, and party leaders were keen to put Republicans on the record on cost-of-living issues, including health care, housing and the cost of electricity as they sharpen their midterm focus on affordability.

“Republicans are choosing to spend time and taxpayer dollars funding agencies that are already funded instead of lowering costs for the American people,” Schumer said Wednesday ahead of the marathon voting session.

Several Republicans voted in support of some of the Democrat-led amendments.

Sens. Josh Hawley of Missouri, Dan Sullivan of Alaska and Collins supported proposals aimed at lowering the cost of prescription drugs and preventing insurance companies from denying or delaying necessary health care. Collins and Sullivan voted in favor of Democratic amendments to reverse cuts to SNAP food aid, limit out-of-pocket health care costs and fund school meals.

Republican Sens. Ashley Moody of Florida, Murkowski and Collins also voted for an amendment aimed at forcing the Trump administration to spend FEMA funding on public assistance and disaster mitigation programs.