Republican congressional leaders announced a deal last Wednesday to fund the Department of Homeland Security, except for its immigration enforcement agencies, and follow up with a plan that would bypass Democrats to provide money for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection.
That plan has run into staunch resistance from House conservatives, even though it seemed to have the backing of President Trump. The far-right House Freedom Caucus on Tuesday publicly rejected the plan and instead called for Republicans to fund all of DHS via a party-line reconciliation bill similar to the one they used to enact their package of spending and tax cuts last year.
“We cannot leave ICE and CBP hanging with nothing but hopes and prayers that reconciliation 2.0 comes together,” the Freedom Caucus said in a social media post. “That’s why we must use reconciliation to fully fund ALL of the Department of Homeland Security! We can tightly control this process with strict instructions to the various committees involved, so no one can sneak in unrelated garbage and distract us from our mission.”
The group called for funding DHS for the rest of Trump’s term, but some Republicans reportedly favor a narrower approach that might be easier to pass quickly. Senate Budget Committee Chair Lindsey Graham reportedly said Monday that he wants to give ICE and CBP “all they need for three to 10 years.” A narrower approach might relegate the Trump administration’s request for additional war funding to a later bill.
House Speaker Mike Johnson had initially derided the two-step plan for DHS, which originated in the Senate, as a “joke, but he embraced the idea after Trump seemingly backed it and called on Republicans to send him the reconciliation bill by June 1.
The Freedom Caucus comments, and continuing anger from other House Republicans about the two-step plan, highlight the ongoing intraparty split over the DHS funding fight as Democrats refuse to provide more money for the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown without reforms to enforcement tactics.
The bottom line: The House held a pro forma session on Monday but did not take steps to pass the Senate’s funding plan. With Republicans divided, there’s no immediate end in sight to the DHS funding showdown. Trump signed an executive order last Friday to have all DHS workers paid, easing some of the pain of the shutdown and relieving the pressure on Congress to resolve the funding fight and address the immigration enforcement concerns.