Photo: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Imag
We’ve hit a new milestone in the fight between House and Senate Republicans over how exactly to stuff ICE and the Border Patrol full of new funding for years to come and whether to keep holding the Department of Homeland Security hostage. Early this morning, the Senate passed, on a 50-48 vote (with Republicans Lisa Murkowski and Rand Paul dissenting), a budget resolution that sets up a narrowly crafted reconciliation bill pre-funding immigration enforcement to the tune of $70 billion between now and the end of Donald Trump’s presidency. Procedurally, it’s like last year’s Big Beautiful Bill Act, but substantively it’s neither big (John Thune described it as deliberately “anorexic” in scope) nor beautiful (unless you really love masked operatives running wild in the streets).
The Senate vote happened in the middle of the night because the budget-resolution and reconciliation process requires a period of unlimited amendment votes known as a “vote-a-rama,” wherein Democrats bombarded Republicans with an array of politically embarrassing items they batted down before passing the measure. Now that this is over, House Republicans have to decide whether to accept the skinny resolution or insist on broadening it to include other right-wing priorities, as MAGA ultras would prefer. Since the whole idea of a budget-reconciliation bill (which cannot be filibustered) is to bypass the minority party entirely, Republicans worried about losing control of Congress in November are anxious to pass as much party-line legislation as possible, either in this bill or another down the road. According to Politico, Speaker Mike Johnson is trying to sell his fractious House Freedom Caucus members on a deal to “eat your skinny-bill broccoli now, then chow down on a third bill later” but is encountering resistance:
[M]any Republicans are doubtful their party will be able to pass another party-line bill ahead of the midterms and see the immigration funding bill as their last bite at the apple. Some of them, including Rep. Warren Davidson of Ohio, are threatening to vote against the Senate budget resolution that would unlock the reconciliation process for the immigration funding measure unless it can incorporate more items from the hard-liners’ wishlist.
Trump has publicly set a June 1 deadline for Congress to get him the next reconciliation bill. But given his many distractions, it’s unclear whether he will insist House Republicans go along with the skinny-bill plan or let a whole new divisive intraparty battle erupt over the scope of this legislation. House and Senate Republicans also remain at loggerheads over the record-length DHS shutdown, which the Senate (with Trump’s passive support) has twice tried to end with a funding bill that doesn’t get into all the messy immigration-enforcement issues. The HFC types, who have extraordinary leverage over Johnson given his tiny margin of control, are determined to hold DHS hostage until the reconciliation bill is on Trump’s desk. But the White House has been signaling that the president is running out of ways to pay TSA and DHS personnel in the absence of congressional funding. A renewed airport crisis might shake the DHS money loose, but short of that, the whole situation screams for a Trump Truth Social missive demanding the obstructionists get with the program. If that doesn’t happen, all sorts of havoc could break out.
Even if Republicans get on the same page, the problem with pre-funding ICE and reopening DHS is that Republican near unanimity is essential. Had Johnson agreed to reopen DHS back when the Senate first approved funding for its non–immigration-enforcement functions, Democratic votes would have lubricated the maneuver. But relying on Democratic votes is precisely what got Johnson’s predecessor, Kevin McCarthy, defenestrated, so he did not go there. Now that the overall Republican game plan is to pre-fund ICE without reforming its abuses, Democrats probably won’t lift a finger to help. So once again, Trump and his fractious followers will probably be left to their own devices.
