WASHINGTON — As Congress returns to Washington this week, Republicans will have to contend with competing factions as they try to muscle through immigration enforcement funding.
After President Donald Trump met with two top GOP senators Friday, he announced his support for funding Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol through a party-line bill, bypassing Democrats, who have refused to fund those two agencies without serious reforms.
Trump said he wants the reconciliation bill, which only needs the support of a simple majority, at his desk by June 1.
“Reconciliation is ON TRACK, and we are moving FAST and FOCUSED in keeping our Border SECURE, and getting funding to the Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department to continue our incredible SUCCESS at MAKING AMERICA SAFE AGAIN!,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post after the meeting.
The filibuster-proof process would follow the same procedures used by the GOP last year to pass the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. But using reconciliation to get the immigration enforcement bill through the House is not a guaranteed victory with Republicans’ razor-thin majority.
The rest of the Department of Homeland Security funding would come through in an appropriations bill that still needs to pass the House, after the Senate unanimously approved it.
Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., in conjunction with Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., came out in support of using reconciliation to pass immigration enforcement funding during recess. Johnson called the Senate proposal “a joke” just days before he reversed course.
Some conservatives in the House Freedom Caucus aren’t on board yet with using reconciliation to fund ICE and Border Patrol. Instead, they want to fund all of DHS at once.
“We can fund DHS for the rest of the President’s term to ensure Democrats can never again take our nation’s security hostage,” the group said in a statement on X. “We will never hand Democrats their ultimate prize: A defunded ICE, handcuffed CBP, and criminal aliens terrorizing our communities.”
The reconciliation bill would fund ICE and Border Patrol through the rest of Trump’s term, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said in a Fox News interview Friday.
Elections measures
Republicans are also eager to pass other parts of Trump’s agenda using a third reconciliation bill before the end of the year, including the voter ID bill, dubbed the SAVE America Act. But that work would come after funding immigration enforcement.
Using the filibuster-proof process comes with limits, though. Reconciliation legislation cannot include policy changes that are merely incidental to the budget, which could hamper the SAVE America Act’s chances.
Though Alabama’s congressional Republicans told Alabama Daily News before leaving for recess that they would support efforts to include the voter ID measure in a party-line bill, they acknowledged that there could be restrictions.
“There’s so many rules on the Senate side, so I don’t know how that works…but that would certainly be a great thing if we could get that in there because I don’t think otherwise it’s going to be able to move forward,” Rep. Robert Aderholt, R-Haleyville, told ADN last month.
Debate on the SAVE America Act in the Senate has been on pause while lawmakers have been out on their two-week recess.
“Whatever it takes, we gotta do this for the American people,” Rep. Barry Moore, R-Enterprise, told ADN, about the elections bill. “The ‘Byrd bath’ is part of that process, but I think there’s a way to make it work,” Moore added, referring to the rule that prevents “extraneous” measures in reconciliation.
Rep. Gary Palmer, R-Birmingham, told ADN before the recess that he was working on finding the best way to tackle the SAVE America Act as part of a reconciliation bill.