WASHINGTON — The U.S. House, including Alabama Republicans, approved about $70 billion for immigration enforcement Tuesday, ending a months-long impasse.
Lawmakers voted 214-212 for a measure that funds Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol through the rest of President Donald Trump’s term.
Alabama’s delegation split on party lines. The rest of the Department of Homeland Security was funded earlier this year, which brought an end to the longest-ever government shutdown.
“Markwayne Mullin was talking about how hard it is to recruit people to come and work for Homeland Security, because they don’t know if they work five or six months and then go months without a paycheck, that’s what’s been happening,” U.S. Rep. Gary Palmer, told Alabama Daily News.
He added that the bill is “not perfect” but it’s “something we need to do now.”
The legislation now heads to Trump’s desk. The Senate passed the bill Friday after multiple delays because of Republican uproar over the Trump administration’s “anti-weaponization” fund and using federal dollars for the White House ballroom project.
Some Senate Republicans and Democrats tried to add restrictions to the fund that would compensate people who feel they were wrongly prosecuted by the federal government, but the legislation was ultimately approved without any limits added to it. The White House has also signaled that it will not move forward with the fund.
Those controversial priorities led Republicans to blow past Trump’s self-imposed deadline of June 1 to fund the two agencies.
U.S. Sens. Katie Britt and Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., both supported the bill last week.
Republicans used the reconciliation process to pass the bill in the Senate, forgoing the 60-vote threshold, after Democrats refused to fund the two immigration enforcement agencies without significant reforms in the wake of the killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minneapolis earlier this year.
As an appropriator, U.S. Rep. Dale Strong, R-Huntsville, said he would have preferred to fund the agencies through the normal process, but acknowledged that it’s important to fund immigration enforcement funded in any way possible this year.
“The situation we’re in right now… is not the preferred method, but we’re going to move forward with it and let’s fund CBP and let’s fund ICE at the levels that need to be funded,” Strong told ADN.
U.S. Rep. Barry Moore, R-Enterprise, who is running for U.S. Senate, said he missed Monday night’s Republican runoff debate in Montgomery to vote on the reconciliation bill Tuesday afternoon. He spoke in favor of the legislation on the House floor.
“Alabama may not sit on the Rio Grande, but the consequences of the open border reach every corner of our state,” Moore said.
House Democrats were united in their opposition to the funding bill because of immigration tactics used under the Trump administration.
“We believe immigration enforcement should be fair, just and humane, that ICE needs to be brought under control and that ICE needs to conduct itself like every other cop, every other police officer and every other law enforcement agency in this country,” House Minority Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said on the House floor.