Senate Republicans released the text of their multibillion-dollar federal immigration package Tuesday, allocating more than $70 billion toward enforcement agencies to be used over the next three years.
Included in the 11 pages of legislative text is a $1 billion boost for the Secret Service, part of which is to be used for “security adjustments and upgrades” related to the East Wing Modernization Project, the ongoing construction of the White House ballroom to establish a secure event space. It’s not clear how much of the $1 billion can go toward those security enhancements, but the bill does make clear that “none of the funds” can go toward nonsecurity elements.
Republicans have pushed for federal funding to increase security enhancements of the White House ballroom, particularly after an attempted assassination against President Donald Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner last week.
Republicans released the joint bills just one week after the House approved the budget framework in a party-line vote. The Judiciary and Homeland Security committees published the text late Monday night, totaling nearly $72 billion in federal funding.
Of that figure, more than $38 billion will go toward Immigration and Customs Enforcement, $26 billion toward Customs and Border Patrol, another $5 billion for the Department of Homeland Security, and $1.5 billion for the Justice Department.
The funding comes after a record-long shutdown of DHS due to opposition from Democrats to fund immigration agencies without comprehensive reforms. Those demands stem from a pair of fatal shootings in Minneapolis earlier this year at the hands of federal immigration officers.
As a result, Republicans pushed for a bipartisan funding package that could secure funding for immigration agencies without needing Democratic support. The reconciliation process, through which the funding package will come to the floor, allows Senate Republicans to skirt the 60-vote filibuster.
“Republicans won’t allow our country to be dragged backwards by Democrats’ radical, anti-law enforcement agenda,” Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said in a statement. “The Senate Judiciary Committee is taking action to help provide certainty for federal law enforcement and safer streets for American families. We will work to ensure this critical funding gets signed into law without unnecessary delay.”
Democrats, for their part, vow to oppose the funding package — meaning Republicans will need to have near unanimous approval to get the bill across the finish line.
“While Americans are struggling to make ends meet as a result of President Trump’s failed policies, Republicans are focused on providing tens of billions of dollars for the President’s vanity ballroom project and cruel mass deportation campaign,” Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in a statement. “Republicans are in danger of losing control of Congress in November, so they are going outside the usual bipartisan appropriations process to fund these unpopular policies through the end of the Trump Administration.”
Republican leaders hope to put the final package up for a vote in mid-May. Trump has given his party members a deadline of June 1 to send the package to his desk.