Senate Republicans plan to forge ahead next week with the first formal steps to pass a party-line immigration enforcement bill totaling $65 billion to $75 billion.
But as GOP leaders scramble to meet President Donald Trump’s June 1 deadline to clear a bill funding ICE and Border Patrol for more than three years, they are facing competing visions within their ranks for what else should be tacked on as the party runs out of time to score more legislative wins before the midterms.
“I think this is it. This is our shot,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) told reporters Tuesday, predicting that Republicans would not end up enacting a third filibuster-skirting budget reconciliation bill before Election Day.
“And that’s why you sense some frustration among a lot of the senators,” he added. “Some of which has been voiced and a lot of which it hasn’t.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune laid out the up-to $75 billion price tag for the bill to reporters Tuesday. The bill’s topline was in the range of what Republicans had been telegraphing over the past week but could spark pushback from at least one fiscal hawk — Senate Homeland Security Chair Rand Paul — because it’s higher than the roughly $50 billion it would cost to fund immigration enforcement at current levels for three years.
The worry among some senior Republicans is that expanding the scope of the bill will slow down the process and complicate the measure’s chances of passing. Instead, they want to simply fund the immigration enforcement agencies not covered under the Senate-passed measure House Republicans are still waiting to clear, two months after funding first lapsed for all of the Department of Homeland Security, which houses the immigration agencies.
“We have members who want other things. I mean, I want other things,” Thune said Tuesday afternoon. “But obviously we have a specific mission and purpose here.”
Senate Budget Chair Lindsey Graham (R-S.C) is expected to release the budget resolution as soon as this week to set the general framework for the final package.
Senate GOP leaders are encouraging Republican senators to offer their ideas as amendments during the chamber’s marathon “vote-a-rama” debate, during which lawmakers are allowed to offer as many germane amendments as they wish.
“There was some suggestion that it ought to be a little broader and everything. I think that’s where the default position is, ‘Then put it in an amendment, and we’ll see if it can pass,’” West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, the No. 4 Senate Republican, told reporters Tuesday afternoon.
Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso said Tuesday the chamber intends to vote “next week” on approving the fiscal blueprint that will allow them to later pass the party-line immigration enforcement bill.
Thune can lose three of his own members and still win on the floor with Vice President JD Vance as the tie-breaking vote, and Republicans are cautiously optimistic they will have the votes next week.
But some fiscal hawks aren’t yet backing down from their demand that the immigration enforcement bill be paid for, which could broaden the scope of the measure as well as the number of issues where Democrats could force tricky amendment votes.
Even if Senate Republicans succeed in adopting the budget framework next week, an identical budget measure also needs to clear the House. GOP hard-liners rejected the Senate’s last attempt to end the DHS shutdown and are now demanding that Republicans use the party-line reconciliation process to fund all of the department.
Thune and Speaker Mike Johnson had been expected to hold a weekly meeting Tuesday where they would discuss the path forward on DHS funding, among other issues. But Thune said the sitdown was punted to Wednesday because of scheduling issues.
Mia McCarthy and Calen Razor contributed to this report.
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