GOP races to pass ICE, Border Patrol funding bill as priorities pile up, divisions emerge
A party-line tactic to ram legislation through Congress and bypass the Senate filibuster has become a dumping ground for Republicans’ legislative priorities throughout the year.Now, as Democrats refuse to fund...
By Fox News · Fox News
A party-line tactic to ram legislation through Congress and bypass the Senate filibuster has become a dumping ground for Republicans’ legislative priorities throughout the year. Now, as Democrats refuse to fund immigration operations, Republicans are once again readying a budget reconciliation package. The hard part will be getting enough of the GOP on the same page to craft a bill that can pass and survive the strict rules underpinning the process. Republicans used the same process to pass President Donald Trump's "big, beautiful bill" last year. It’s a time-consuming, labor-intensive legislative maneuver that nearly blew up and could fail unless both the Senate and House align on what exactly they want to include. SENATE PASSES BILL TO FUND MOST OF DHS AFTER HOUSE GOP CAVES Trump officially backed using reconciliation again this week as a way to skirt Democrats’ refusal to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), as Congress inches closer to ending the ongoing Department of Homeland Security (DHS) shutdown. Trump demanded that Republicans get the bill on his desk by June 1. "We are going to work as fast and as focused as possible to replenish funding for our Border and ICE agents, and the Radical Left Democrats won’t be able to stop us," Trump said on Truth Social. Still, Republicans have viewed reconciliation as a vehicle to tackle fraud, affordability, Trump’s tariff authorities, additional tax provisions, healthcare, funding for the Iran war, supplemental agriculture spending, and election integrity measures in the months since passing the "big, beautiful bill." DHS SHUTDOWN BREAKTHROUGH COMES AT COST FOR REPUBLICANS AS FUNDING FIGHTS NEARS END Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has warned that if reconciliation is going to work — especially given the limited timeframe lawmakers have to start and finish the process — Republicans need to "keep our expectations realistic." "Our theory of the case behind all…