Budget resolution for immigration funding headed to Senate floor

WASHINGTON - Senate Republicans plan to release their budget resolution and take a procedural vote as early as Tuesday, kicking off the cumbersome process for a reconciliation bill designed to help end the partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said Monday he hopes to confine the bill to the narrow mission of funding Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol. 

The party is aiming to provide about $70 billion in funding to sustain the immigration agencies for at least the next three years, without placing any new guardrails on federal immigration agents sought by Democrats. The budget resolution would contain instructions to the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and Judiciary panels, which would be charged with writing the details of the upcoming reconciliation bill.

“When you start adding other committee jurisdictions, everything gets harder,” Thune said.

Passage of immigration funding through a reconciliation bill could pave the way for the House to clear a Senate-passed bill to fund the rest of the Department of Homeland Security, thereby ending a record-breaking partial shutdown that has persisted for more than two months.

But with Democrats staunchly opposed to more immigration funding without restraints, Republicans in both chambers will need to stay unified to pass the measure on their own with razor-thin majorities.

Senate Budget Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., is writing the budget resolution and plans to meet with other Budget Committee Republicans on Tuesday morning. Graham has said he would limit his budget resolution to immigration funding, while deferring other priorities, such as defense and anti-fraud measures, to a subsequent reconciliation bill later in the year.

Push for expansion

But some GOP senators, including Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and John Kennedy, R-La., who are skeptical of the chances for passing two reconciliation bills this year, are pushing to add other provisions to the current measure to provide economic relief ahead of the midterm elections.

Cruz, for example, wants to add a tax provision to index capital gains to inflation.

“I’m certainly not opposed to that,” Thune said of the proposal in general. But as far as putting it in the reconciliation bill, he said, “We’d have to know that we have the votes to get it done.” He noted that including the tax measure would require expanding reconciliation instructions to the Senate Finance Committee, “which brings into play not only that but lots of other tax policies and health care policies that could get considered on the floor too.”

“The exercise here is to make sure we have something that gets 50 (votes) here and 218 (votes) in the House, that is narrow and focused on ensuring that the ICE and CBP are funded well into the future,” he said.

Nevertheless, Thune said there is a chance that other provisions aimed at the economy could be added if there is enough support. “If there are good ideas out there and we think they are the kinds of proposals that can ensure that we have the votes necessary to get the basic things that we need to get done with this bill done, then I’m open to hearing about it,” he said. “But right now, the goal is to ensure that those DHS agencies are funded.”

Thune said he anticipates Republicans will yield back some of their allotted 25 hours of debate time, somewhat accelerating the path to the start of unlimited amendment votes known as a vote-a-rama. He said he expects Democrats will use all of their 25 hours.

If a motion to proceed to the budget resolution is approved on Tuesday, the vote-a-rama could begin Wednesday night, though timing remains fluid.

Thune said he can’t guarantee the Senate could pass an additional reconciliation bill - after the current one being planned - that is sought by some in the GOP. It will “come down to where the votes are,” he said.

Thune said GOP leaders will be watching the vote count on the budget resolution in case Vice President JD Vance is needed to break a tie. Vance was expected to lead further talks on the Iran war in Islamabad, Pakistan, on Tuesday.

Other agenda items this week

▪ The timing and sequencing of the DHS funding bill may be further complicated this week because of the state of play on reauthorizing and updating controversial surveillance authorities.

Over the weekend, Trump signed a short-term extension of the intelligence tools under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, but that only gives negotiators until the end of the month to come up with a longer plan after compromise efforts fell apart in the House last week.

Senate Intelligence Chairman Tom Cotton, R-Ark., last week introduced a three-year extension that could be the basis for the Senate’s next move.

▪ In the House, it’s an energy and environment week on the House floor, where the key legislation includes a bill to amend the Endangered Species Act.

▪ The House Appropriations Committee begins its markup of both the Military Construction-VA and Financial Services spending bills on Tuesday, with subcommittee consideration of the National-Security State and Agriculture bills scheduled for Thursday.

▪ Senate appropriators have a full slate of hearings on Tuesday and Wednesday, with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. slated to appear before the Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations Subcommittee on Tuesday.

A bunch of other Cabinet members will follow at their respective subcommittees on Wednesday, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

Authorizing committees get their chance to question Cabinet members, too, as key members of the Trump administration make their rounds to explain and defend the president’s fiscal 2027 budget request.

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, for instance, hears from Energy Secretary Chris Wright on Tuesday morning, and the Finance Committee gets its turn to question Kennedy on Wednesday morning.

▪ Another key hearing for the week takes place on Tuesday when the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee has a confirmation hearing on the nomination of Kevin Warsh to be chair of the Federal Reserve.

Whether Warsh can advance hinges a lot on Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., as well as the decision-makers at the Department of Justice. Tillis has repeatedly pledged to block any Federal Reserve nominees while the Justice Department continues its investigation of current Chair Jerome Powell for potential false statements in testimony about renovations to the Federal Reserve building. Tillis has said the investigation is an effort to intimidate Powell into lowering interest rates.

“I will vote for Kevin Warsh simultaneously with the conclusion of that statement coming out of the DOJ, and not a day before, and not for the remaining … 264 days in my tenure in the U.S. Senate,” Tillis, who is retiring, said in an NBC News interview.

Republicans have only a one-seat majority on the Banking panel, where Tillis is a member.

CQ-Roll Call contributed to this report.

Copyright 2026 Tribune Content Agency. All Rights Reserved.