Senate Republicans took another step Tuesday toward reopening the Department of Homeland Security, voting to debate a blueprint that would fund three years of immigration enforcement and help put to rest a monthslong dispute with the Democrats.
In a matter of hours, Republicans released and then brought to the floor a plan that would provide up to $70 billion for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and its sister agency, Customs and Border Protection.
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It will be a long road to actually dole out those funds, as the Senate pursues a convoluted process that lets Republicans circumvent the filibuster and sidestep Democratic votes. The legislation also addresses only a fraction of DHS, which has a sweeping mandate that includes airport security and disaster relief.
But the procedural step, which advanced in a 52-46 vote, marks the first concrete movement in weeks toward ending a partial government shutdown that began in mid-February, and House Republicans have promised to act quickly if Senate leaders can show progress.
First, the Senate will undergo a “vote-a-rama” this week that, in the end, is expected to approve the blueprint, which merely instructs the relevant committees to draft text for a final funding bill.
Republicans will then have to go through the entire process again to approve the funding itself, meaning there will be a second vote-a-rama sometime in May.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin warned in a Fox News interview Tuesday that emergency funding is slated to run out the first week of May.
Ahead of the vote, Democrats panned the legislation as a giveaway to “rogue” agencies at a time when Congress should be focused on the cost of living. They had been negotiating with the White House a set of reforms to immigration enforcement after federal officers fatally shot two protesters in Minneapolis, but those talks devolved, prompting Republicans to go at it alone.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) told reporters that Democrats had “effectively written themselves out of the appropriations process” by refusing a set of concessions the White House offered in March on ICE and CBP.
“Frankly, this is not my preference, but it is a reality — we are going to use the reconciliation process to fund those two important agencies,” Thune said.
The Senate has already approved a DHS bill that funds everything except ICE and CBP, a temporary solution that Democrats agreed to let pass in late March.
But House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is delaying a vote on that bill in the House due to concerns within his conference that the enforcement money will fall to the wayside.
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“The sequencing is important. We’ve got to make sure that we don’t isolate and, as I say, make an ‘orphan’ out of key agencies of the department,” Johnson said at a Tuesday press conference. “And there’s some concern on our side that if you do the bulk of the department first before that, then they could be left out.”
“We can’t allow for that,” Johnson added.
