Senate Republicans advance budget plan to fully fund ICE, CBP

Senate Republicans advanced a budget resolution Monday that would open the door to a reconciliation bill fully funding Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection for 3.5 years, a move designed to carry the agencies through the rest of Donald Trump’s term without Democratic support.

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, introduced the Fiscal Year 2026 blueprint as the next step in a broader push to expand immigration enforcement on a party-line basis. The plan is meant to block what Graham described as Democratic efforts to defund border security, while directing money to the two agencies most central to Trump’s immigration agenda. Republicans also said the Senate would take its first votes on the workaround this week, using budget reconciliation so the bill can pass with a simple majority rather than the usual 60-vote threshold.

The Budget Committee said the measure would amount to roughly $70 billion in immigration enforcement funding over three years. Other analyses suggested the reconciliation structure could allow as much as $140 billion in new borrowing for DHS enforcement agencies, underscoring how much the fight is about more than a single spending bill. The resolution is expected to send instructions to the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which would draft the legislation that would follow. GOP leaders have described the effort as an “anorexic” bill, but some Republicans want to expand it with other priorities, including farm aid and the SAVE America Act.

The push comes after months of deadlock over the Department of Homeland Security. Democrats have blocked funding for ICE and CBP since mid-February, after two U.S. citizens were killed in Minneapolis by federal immigration enforcement agents, arguing that new money should come with stronger guardrails and reforms. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called the Republican maneuver a “partisan sideshow” and said it would pour money into immigration enforcement without meaningful restraints. In March, the Senate agreed to reopen most of DHS while leaving ICE and CBP unfunded, a temporary compromise that followed a 42-day funding lapse and airport disruptions.

Trump has backed the party-line approach and set a June 1 deadline for Congress to send him an ICE and Border Patrol funding bill. If Republicans keep the measure narrow and move it through reconciliation, the result could be a major increase in detention capacity, deportation operations and border enforcement spending, all built around a strategy that bypasses Democratic votes and turns the budget process into the central battleground over immigration policy.