The House will vote on a temporary spending package that includes $5 billion in funding for a southern border wall.
The House Rules Committee advanced the measure 8-2 Thursday, sending it to the House floor for a vote. The measure also includes about $8.7 billion in funding for states impacted by hurricanes and wildfires.
“I would anticipate we will move it very rapidly to the floor,” Rules Committee Chairman Pete Sessions, R-Texas, said.
Sessions predicted the House would “pass the bill,” but advised the rules panel to “be standing by.”
It’s not clear whether the House GOP actually has the votes to pass the measure with wall funding and lawmakers could end up taking another vote on a bill that excludes the wall funding.
Rules Committee ranking Democrat Jim McGovern, D-Mass., chastised the GOP for adding the wall money. He called it “a waste of money” and “offensive.”
Sessions said the existing wall is helping to keep out up to 30,000 immigrants now camped along the border seeking to gain entry into the United States.
“The border wall is allowing for what would be the proper protection of our border,” Sessions said. “There are drugs, there are illegal people coming across. It’s a mess. It’s a human tragedy and they are gathering at the wall.”
