Senate passes budget plan for ICE and Border Patrol in bid to reopen
Homeland Security Department
[April 23, 2026]
By MARY CLARE JALONICK
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate took the first steps in a new effort to
reopen the Department of Homeland Security early Thursday, voting to
adopt a budget plan that would fund ICE and Border Patrol over
Democratic objections and sending it to the House.
The entire department has been shut down since mid-February as Democrats
have demanded policy changes in the wake of fatal shootings of two
protesters by federal agents. Republicans are now trying to fund the two
immigration enforcement agencies through the complicated, time-consuming
process called budget reconciliation, a maneuver that they also used to
pass President Donald Trump’s package of tax and spending cuts last year
with no Democratic votes.
“We have a multistep process ahead of us, but at the end Republicans
will have helped ensure that America's borders are secure and prevented
Democrats from defunding these important agencies,” said Senate Majority
Leader John Thune, R-S.D.
The budget process only requires a simple majority in the Senate,
bypassing filibuster rules that require Republicans to find 60 votes on
most bills when they only hold 53 seats. But it also comes with
increased scrutiny from the Senate parliamentarian and a long,
open-ended series of amendment votes at the beginning and the end of the
process.
The Senate held the first series of votes through the night, starting
Wednesday evening and into early Thursday morning, with Democrats
proposing amendments to lower health care expenses and other costs in an
effort to contrast with Republicans’ focus on Trump’s campaign of
immigration enforcement.
“Instead of pumping hundreds of billions of dollars into ICE and Border
Patrol, Republicans should be working with Democrats to lower
out-of-pocket costs,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.
The Senate adopted the final resolution 50-48, just past 3:30 a.m.
A lengthy effort to reopen Homeland Security
Once the House approves the framework and the Senate Parliamentarian
approves it, the two chambers can then move to pass the measure.
The Senate has already voted on a bipartisan basis to reopen the rest of
the department, but Republican leaders in the House say they won’t take
that bill up until the Senate shows progress toward funding ICE and
Border Patrol, as well.
The $70 billion budget resolution would fund the two agencies for three
years, through the rest of Trump’s term. Thune and other GOP leaders say
they hope to keep the bill narrowly focused on ICE and Border Patrol and
get it to Trump’s desk in the coming weeks, along with the rest of
Homeland Security Department funding that has already passed the Senate.
But that could prove difficult as many in the party see the budget bill
as the last real chance this year to enact their priorities. Republicans
in both the Senate and House have pushed to add other items, including
money for farmers and Trump’s proof of citizenship voting bill, called
the SAVE America Act.
Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., briefly held up the vote series late
Wednesday, frustrated that the bill would not include parts of the SAVE
America Act or other legislation.
“This is the last train leaving the station,” Kennedy said, predicting
they would not be able to pass any other major bills ahead of November's
midterm elections. But he withdrew his objections and allowed the voting
to proceed.
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Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., holds a news
conference about the budget process that Republicans hope will fund
Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol, at the
Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, April 22, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott
Applewhite)
Democrats say reform needed at ICE and Border Patrol after
shootings
Democrats say any funding bill for the Homeland Security Department
should place restraints on federal immigration authorities,
including better identification for federal officers and more use of
judicial warrants, among other asks.
After federal agents shot Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis
in January, Trump agreed to a Democratic request that the Homeland
Security bill be separated from a larger spending measure that
became law. But bipartisan negotiations went nowhere, and the DHS
funding lapsed with no agreement on changes to the Trump
administration’s immigration enforcement tactics.
In March, the Senate passed the legislation by voice vote that would
separate out ICE and Border Patrol and fund the rest of the
department, including the Transportation Security Administration as
security lines grew long at some airports. But Republicans in the
House refused to consider it, saying they wouldn’t support any bill
that didn’t include money for immigration enforcement.
Congress then left town for a two-week recess, leaving the issue
unresolved. Trump has used executive orders to pay some department
salaries in the meantime, but the future of those paychecks is
uncertain.
Potential roadblocks in the House
During the recess, Thune and House Speaker Mike Johnson announced
that they would pursue a two-track approach — pass the Senate bill
that includes most of the department’s funding through regular order
and use the party-line bill to pass ICE and CBP funding.
Weeks later, though, Johnson has still not said when the House will
take up the Senate’s legislation that would fund the rest of the
department. And it is unclear if members of his GOP conference will
unite behind the narrowed budget bill as some House Republicans have
argued, like Sen. Kennedy, that they should add other priorities to
the legislation.
Johnson said this week that the sequencing of the two bills is
important. House lawmakers don’t want to see the rest of the
department funded without ICE and Border Patrol, he said.
But Thune warned after the Senate vote that other parts of the
Homeland Security Department may run out of money before they are
able to finish the winding budget process and fund those two
agencies. He said he hopes the adoption of the budget resolution is
a signal to the House that “we're going to be following through."
“We'll see what they can do with it," Thune said. “And if they
can't, I guess we will go to the next plan.”
___
Associated Press writer Kevin Freking contributed to this report.
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