President Donald Trump is pushing congressional Republicans to draft and pass a second policy megabill funding federal immigration officers, and to have the legislation on his desk by the beginning of June.
In a lengthy Truth Social post on Wednesday, the president pressed GOP lawmakers to work “as fast, and as focused, as possible” to finalize the legislation — just one week after Republican leaders officially gave the green light to pursue a reconciliation package. The package is expected to focus on immigration enforcement and border security, especially after Republicans omitted that funding from the larger Department of Homeland Security funding package earlier this week.
“Unlike Republicans, Democrats want to DEFUND the Police, Border Patrol, and all Immigration Enforcement,” Trump wrote. “That’s why we are going forward to fund our incredible ICE Agents and Border Patrol through a process that doesn’t need Radical Left Democrat votes, and bypasses the Senate Filibuster (which should be repealed, IMMEDIATELY!), working in close conjunction with House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Leader John Thune.”
It’s not yet clear what will be included in the second reconciliation package. Top Republicans on their respective budgetary committees met several times last week to begin strategizing, although it has become clear immigration funding will be the main focus.
After announcing Republicans would strip ICE and Border Patrol funding from the DHS appropriations bill on Wednesday, top party leaders said they would pursue funding for three years with the reconciliation bill. That way, they argue, they won’t run into a similar impasse with Democrats in the future.
But Republicans are weighing other spending requests they’d want to include in the policy megabill, raising questions about what it will include — and how Congress will pay for it.
As a result, top party leaders are tempering expectations to keep the package as narrow as possible to ensure its success. Thune told reporters on Thursday he wants to ensure the bill doesn’t become a “magnet” for other issues, and it should instead stay focused on one or two key areas.
“The other things implicate other committees and create jurisdictional challenges and germaneness issues on the floor,” Thune said. “Our theory of the case behind all this was to keep that thing as narrow and focused as possible. ... We need to kind of move with haste.”
Iran war funding could be included in reconciliation bill
Another key area Republicans are expected to include in the reconciliation package is supplemental funding for U.S. military operations in Iran — something Democrats have vowed to block, forcing the majority party to explore ways to approve that spending without their support.
Through the budget reconciliation process, the majority party can prevent a filibuster to expedite the passage of certain legislation and go around the minority party by enacting key pieces of their agenda with a simple majority vote.
But there are certain rules that dictate how often reconciliation can be used, and the procedure can only be utilized to advance budget-related legislation such as taxes, spending and the debt limit.
Still, Republicans have floated trying to include certain election-related measures in the reconciliation package, especially as the party’s SAVE America Act seeking proof-of-citizenship requirements stalls in the Senate.
Utah Sen. Mike Lee, the lead sponsor of the SAVE America Act, has been adamant that the bill would not qualify for the reconciliation process. But other Republicans have kept their options on the table for some version of Lee’s proposed policies.
In some ways, the second reconciliation package could be used to pick up where Republicans left off with the One Big Beautiful Bill Act last summer. Some Republicans have already started floating cuts to certain health care funds they believe are wasteful or prone to fraud, suggesting those as ways to offset the cost of the immigration and military funding.
“There’s no reason that we can’t also advance the president’s war on fraud as a way to pay for the war on a nuclear Iran,” House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington said last week.