(The Center Square) – After six hours of failed amendment votes, the U.S. Senate adopted Republicans’ budget resolution to fund immigration enforcement in a 50-48 vote early Thursday.
U.S. Sens. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Rand Paul, R-Ky., voted with all Democrats against the legislation.
The budget resolution directs the congressional Judiciary and Homeland Security committees to craft a budget reconciliation bill – a filibuster-proof vehicle for adjusting federal spending – that pledges up to $140 billion for ICE and U.S. Border Patrol over the next 3.5 years.
The House, however, won’t take up the measure until at least Monday, and some House Republicans want to expand the scope of the budget resolution beyond immigration enforcement funding.
“If it comes over and that’s what I’m confronted with, then I will vote for it – reluctantly, because they were missing a huge opportunity to get a lot of good stuff done,” Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Mo., told reporters Thursday. “We’re wasting a reconciliation bill.”
Reconciliation is a last-ditch effort by Republicans to finish the fiscal year 2026 appropriations process and reopen the Department of Homeland Security, which has remained shuttered for 69 days.
A hybrid Homeland Security appropriations bill, which includes annual funds for all DHS agencies except ICE and CBP, has already passed the Senate and awaits a House vote.
But House Republicans are waiting to approve it until they see progress on a budget reconciliation bill ensuring funding for those agencies, which begins with the budget resolution.
If Republicans try to attach other policy riders to the bill, the path to reopening DHS could get even rockier and Republicans could miss President Donald Trump’s June 1 deadline for the reconciliation bill to reach his desk.
“We cannot allow Democrats to hold DHS funding hostage when our national security is on the line,” Rep. Cory Mills, R-Fla., posted on X Thursday. “Senate Republicans just locked in a $70 billion plan to fund ICE and Border Patrol and end the DHS shutdown, now it’s on the House to act. We MUST get this done.”
