ICE immigration enforcement funding on track to Trump’s desk

The U.S. House is poised to vote to on a $70 billion package to fund immigration enforcement agencies and, after months of partisan fighting, send the measure to President Donald Trump‘s desk.

The package would fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, two Department of Homeland Security subagencies left out of an earlier spending bill amid Democratic opposition, and bring to an end a drawn-out debate over immigration enforcement policy that began in January and led to a government shutdown.

A final House vote to pass the immigration funding package could come as soon as Tuesday.

The Senate passed the package early Friday morning on a 52-47 vote. It would fund the immigration enforcement agencies through the end of Trump’s presidency. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, was the lone Republican to vote against it.

“We were forced to use the reconciliation process because Democrats objected – during the appropriations process – to giving any money to Border Patrol and ICE, effectively shutting our border security down at a time of growing threats to the nation,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., chair of the Senate budget panel, said in a statement on Friday after the measure passed. Graham was referring to the budget reconciliation process, which allows for the passage of legislation in the Senate on a party-line vote.

“In less than two years, President Trump has taken the border from the most broken to the most secure in history. The bill we passed today locks those gains in through the rest of his term,” Graham continued.

Democrats have opposed funding for both ICE and CBP since two civilians were killed by federal law enforcement in Minneapolis during a January immigration enforcement surge. A more than two-month long partial government shutdown followed, and Republicans were forced to turn to the budget reconciliation process.

Budget reconciliation can be used only for spending-related measures but requires just 50 votes to pass in the Senate, instead of the 60 votes normally required to overcome a filibuster. The measure needs only a simple majority in the House, where the Rules Committee will begin consideration Monday afternoon.

With a razor-thin majority in the House, Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., will need near unanimous support to advance the measure, which is expected to get little, if any, Democratic support.

Trump had initially demanded the package on his desk by June 1, but its fate was uncertain in late May after the president announced without consultation from Congress a $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund to compensate Americans wrongly targeted by the government, including potentially Jan. 6…