Senate Republicans advance $140bn plan to fund Trump immigration crackdown amid DHS shutdown

Senate Republicans on Thursday approved a plan to fund Donald Trump’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants for the remainder of his term and pave the way for an end to the ongoing shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

The budget resolution adopted along a near party line vote in the early morning hours sets the stage for Congress to craft legislation allocating as much as $140b to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), two agencies at the forefront of Trump’s mass deportation agenda that have been without funding since mid-February, when the DHS shutdown began.

The budget resolution passed by a 50-48 vote, with all Democrats in opposition along with Republicans, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Rand Paul of Kentucky. Its advancement is an important step in the budget reconciliation process, which Republicans are using to skirt a filibuster by Democrats who have refused to vote for funding ICE or CBP after federal agents killed two US citizens in January during an intensive immigration operation in Minneapolis.

“We have a multi-step process ahead of us, but at the end Republicans will have helped ensure that America’s borders are secure and prevented Democrats from defunding these important agencies,” the Republican Senate majority leader, John Thune, said.

The resolution must now be adopted in the House of Representatives, before the chambers’ committees on judiciary and homeland security can get to work on writing the legislation that will formally unlock the funding for the two agencies.

Mike Johnson, the Republican speaker of the House, has said that if progress is made on the reconciliation bill, he will hold a vote on a separate measure, which the Senate approved last month with bipartisan support, to allocate funding for the rest of DHS’s operations exclusive of ICE and CBP.

“Sequencing is important. We have to make sure we don’t isolate and make an orphan out of key agencies of the department,” Johnson said at a press conference Tuesday.

Following the killings in Minneapolis, Democrats spent weeks seeking a deal with the Trump administration on reforms to immigration operations, including a ban on federal agents wearing masks and stopping people without warrants. Those talks broke down, leading Republicans to resort to funding ICE and CBP unilaterally.

“Tonight, Senate Republicans showed the American people where they stand: Not for families struggling with the high costs of childcare, groceries, and gasoline, electricity, but for pumping $140 billion towards rogue agencies,” the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, said after the budget resolution passed.

The Senate adopted the measure only after a process known as “vote-a-rama”, in which lawmakers were able to offer amendments to the bill.

Democrats used this as an opportunity to propose changes centered on the affordability message they are hoping will win over voters in the midterm elections, including amendments intended to address grocery prices and out-of-pocket health care costs.

Susan Collins of Maine and Dan Sullivan of Alaska – two incumbents viewed as vulnerable to losing re-election in November – voted in favor of those amendments, but they ultimately did not receive enough support to advance.