Kerry Picket & Lindsey McPherson (The Washington Times)
President Trump signed a Republican-backed $70 billion immigration enforcement package on Wednesday to fund U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection through the duration of his presidency.
“We’ll give the heroes of ICE and Border Patrol, and that’s what they are … the support and resources they need to defend our borders, protect our homeland and to keep America safe,” Mr. Trump said in a ceremony in the Oval Office.
The president spoke at length about his administration’s success in clamping down on the border, perhaps the signature achievement of his second term to date.
“I got elected on that,” he said. “We had a border czar [former Vice President Kamala Harris] who never saw the border.”
Republicans passed the reconciliation funding measure after Democrats refused to support annual appropriations for the immigration enforcement agencies earlier in the year. Democrats raised objections after two U.S. citizens were shot and killed during protests over ICE tactics in Minnesota.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, Louisiana Republican, hailed the passage of the funding package saying Democrats “would love to go back to open borders.”
“We won’t let them,” he said. “We worked with President Trump to secure the border. In fact, it was the No. 1 issue in the 2024 election. The American people spoke loud and clear.”
The reconciliation bill, the Secure America Act, includes $38.6 billion for ICE, $26 billion for CBP and an additional $5 billion for Homeland Security to use for immigration enforcement.
The House passed the bill in a 214-212 vote on Tuesday, four days after the Senate passed it. The House and Senate votes on the $70 billion package fell largely along party lines.
Mr. Trump had called on Republicans to send him the immigration enforcement funding package by June 1, which was delayed in the Senate for several weeks because of political backlash to his $1.8 billion Anti-Weaponization Fund for the Justice Department, a proposal that was ultimately withdrawn.
The administration’s push to fund immigration enforcement has been a long slog for the White House and Republicans, as they have faced obstacles from congressional Democrats who said they opposed giving ICE and CBP a $70 billion “blank check” to conduct enforcement without any guardrails against the type of tactics Mr. Trump’s deportation force has been repeatedly seen on camera deploying.
“Republicans are pouring your hard-earned tax dollars into an agency that has brutalized and terrorized communities and even killed American citizens,” said House Democratic Caucus Chairman Pete Aguilar of California.
The partisan dispute erupted early in the year after federal agents killed Alex Pretti and Renee Good, who were protesting enforcement activity in Minneapolis.
It led to a record 76-day shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security as Senate Democrats filibustered its annual spending bill to push for limits on the immigration enforcement agencies.
Both sides of the aisle could not agree on terms, but Republicans eventually conceded to funding the non-immigration enforcement agencies separately and passing ICE and CBP funding later through the filibuster-proof budget-reconciliation process.
The $70 billion can be spent immediately after the bill is signed into law, but it is designed to last through fiscal 2029, after Mr. Trump’s term ends.
Democrats argued the funding package shows Republicans’ priorities are misplaced, because it does nothing to help Americans struggling to afford basic necessities such as housing, groceries, gas and healthcare.
“This bill does not include one dime to help American families pay for the crushing costs that they bear,” said Rep. Brendan Boyle of Pennsylvania, the top Democrat on the Budget Committee.
This article was made available to WMAL via The Washington Times.
