House Speaker Mike Johnson is dropping his objection to the Senate-passed partial funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security, after President Trump endorsed a plan to fund immigration enforcement agencies in a separate party-line package.
The president said Wednesday he wants Congress to send him that package no later than June 1, giving Republicans a month-and-a-half after lawmakers return to Washington in mid-April to draft and pass the measure.
The House is expected to clear the partial DHS funding bill in the interim, but doing so involves procedural hoops that will likely take a few days.
Mr. Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, South Dakota Republican, issued a joint statement Wednesday making clear that Mr. Trump intervened to break an impasse between the two chambers.
“In the coming days, Republicans in the Senate and House will be following through on the president’s directive by fully funding the entire Department of Homeland Security on two parallel tracks: through the appropriations process and through the reconciliation process,” the two GOP leaders said.
The budget reconciliation process is exempt from the Senate filibuster, so Republicans do not need Democratic support for the portion of the plan related to immigration enforcement.
Senate Republicans initiated the two-track approach last week but House Republicans objected to the partial DHS bill. The measure does not fund U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the border patrol functions of Customs and Border Protection.
Instead, the House amended it with a stopgap measure to fund all of DHS through May 22.
The Senate will have to repass the bill with the original, partial DHS funding language, which the chamber could do during a Thursday pro forma session if no senators object.
The House could also try to clear the measure through unanimous consent, but any lawmaker could object and force their colleagues to come back to Washington early for a roll call vote.
Some Republicans have started publicly objecting to the plan.
“Caving to Democrats and not paying CBP and ICE is agreeing to defund Law Enforcement and leaving our borders wide open again,” said Pennsylvania GOP Rep. Scott Perry. “If that’s the vote, I’m a NO.”
Senate Democrats agreed to the partial DHS bill that removed funding for the president’s deportation force after filibustering multiple bills to fully fund the department.
They refused to approve any money for ICE or border patrol without immigration enforcement policy changes, such as requiring agents to de-mask and wear identification to use judicial warrants to conduct arrests on private property.
Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, took a victory lap after Republicans agreed to return to the bipartisan agreement to fund most of DHS.
“Throughout this fight, Senate Democrats never wavered,” he said. “We were clear from the start: fund critical security, protect Americans, and no blank check for reckless ICE and Border Patrol enforcement. We were united, held the line, and refused to let Republican chaos win.”
Mr. Thune has said publicly for weeks he did not think Democrats actually wanted to cut a deal on immigration enforcement changes after they rebuffed several White House offers compromising on some of their demands.
But the Senate leader helped Mr. Johnson save face, co-signing the statement that said they “operated under a belief that while our country is in the midst of an international armed conflict, Democrats might finally come to their senses and understand that defunding our homeland security agencies is beyond reckless and very dangerous.”
Mr. Johnson is now joining Mr. Thune in accepting the political reality that bipartisan talks were not going to yield a deal.
“It is now abundantly clear that Democrats place allegiance to their radical left-wing base above all else — including their own power of the purse — which means open borders and protecting criminal illegal aliens,” they said. “That is not acceptable to Republicans in Congress, nor is it to the American people.”
Mr. Johnson and Mr. Thune said the two-track funding approach will allow Congress to “fully reopen” DHS, as ICE and CBP are already funded through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
In a second budget reconciliation package, the leaders said, Republicans plan to “fund immigration enforcement and border security for the next three years so that those law-enforcement activities can continue uninhibited.”
A White House official said the Trump administration is supportive of the two-track approach.
Mr. Trump addressed the second track in a Truth Social post on Wednesday that slammed Democrats for wanting to defund the police, border patrol and immigration enforcement.
“They want to allow Criminals, the Mentally Insane, and Lunatics from all over the World to come into our Country, totally unvetted and unchecked, putting Americans in serious danger,” he said.
Until Mr. Trump’s June 1 deadline, he said he will continue to use the OBBB funding to pay ICE and border patrol agents. He has also recently tapped into that pot of money to pay Transportation Security Administration agents to help reduce long airport security wait times.
“We are going to work as fast, and as focused, as possible to replenish funding for our Border and ICE Agents, and the Radical Left Democrats won’t be able to stop us,” Mr. Trump said. “We will not allow them to hurt the families of these Great Patriots by defunding them.”
The timeline for producing a second reconciliation package is far more compressed than the roughly four months it took Congress to pass the OBBB last year.
But this second budget reconciliation package is expected to be less sweeping. In addition to funding immigration enforcement, Republicans have talked about replenishing defense funds used in the U.S.-led conflict against Iran and attempting to pass pieces of the SAVE America Act, the party’s election integrity bill.
The Senate and House Budget Committees have already begun drafting a budget resolution that both chambers need to adopt to tee up the reconciliation process.
Mr. Johnson and Mr. Thune said the reconciliation package will ensure border security and immigration enforcement will be funded through the rest of Mr. Trump’s term and “insulated from future attempts by the Democrats to defund those agencies.”
Republicans are still using the partisan dispute as a way to appeal to voters ahead of the November midterm elections.
Mr. Trump in his social media post urged the American people to reflect on President Biden’s open border policies and Democrats’ desire to return to that era of “zero immigration enforcement.”
“These Radical, Weak, and Incompetent Democrats have made clear that if they resume power, they will never again provide funding to secure our Border, or enforce our Immigration Laws,” he said. “They want America to be OPEN AND AVAILABLE to Violent Criminals, Thugs, and Lowlifes, not our Great and Loving American Patriots. Don’t forget that in November. WIN THE MIDTERMS!”
Democrats believe the American people are on their side in demanding immigration enforcement guardrails, after federal agents killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis earlier this year.
“I’m glad to see Speaker Johnson and House Republican leadership accept reality and decide to bring the Senate-passed bill to fund the law-abiding parts of DHS and pay our public servants to the floor,” said Rep. Don Beyer, Virginia Democrat. “They should bring it up for a vote without delay.”
