For 47 days, Democrats have refused to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and parts of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) without sweeping reforms. President Donald Trump is now considering a move that could make both agencies shutdown-proof for the rest of his second term.
The president is asking top Republicans to draft a budget reconciliation package funding ICE and CBP that could pass both chambers without any Democratic support.
"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," Trump wrote on Truth Social. "We will not allow them to hurt the families of these Great Patriots by defunding them."
The president added that he wants the legislation on his desk by June 1.
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The budget reconciliation push comes as Republican efforts to fund ICE and the Border Patrol through regular order have stalled in the Senate due to widespread opposition from Democrats.
With the Senate’s 60-vote legislative threshold in place, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., effectively has veto power over DHS appropriations if he keeps his caucus in line.
The budget reconciliation process would allow Republicans to steer around Democratic opposition and pass a DHS funding bill at a simple majority threshold. Republicans narrowly passed Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act using reconciliation in June 2025 after months of intraparty squabbling.
The feat could prove more difficult in an election year when lawmakers will have to identify pay-for spending cuts. The strategy could also extend the funding lapse for several more months.
It is not clear how long Republicans would seek to fund immigration enforcement, or whether they would also include funding for non-immigration-related DHS agencies in a forthcoming budget reconciliation bill.
The U.S. Coast Guard, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the U.S. Secret Service have seen a lapse in appropriations, though Trump took executive action to provide back pay to TSA agents reporting to work during the shutdown.
A Senate bill funding those DHS subagencies was immediately rejected by House Republican leadership on Friday for failing to fund immigration enforcement.
Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., told reporters Monday that Senate Republicans are considering a budget reconciliation package that would fund Trump’s illegal immigration crackdown efforts for the next three years.
"The Democrats can't create another shutdown like they did this time," Hoeven said, if the bill were to be signed into law.
The North Dakota lawmaker also disputed that a budget reconciliation bill would take several months to put together.
"We'll get it done as quick as you can," Hoeven said. "I hope it's certainly not months."
Amid both chambers’ planned two-week recesses, Trump told the New York Post on Tuesday he is considering calling Congress back to Washington to find a solution to the DHS shutdown.
House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., told CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Wednesday that a "skinny reconciliation bill" funding the department would pass both chambers once Congress resumes session in mid-April if a deal has not been reached.
House GOP leadership has previously voiced skepticism about funding immigration enforcement through a budget reconciliation package. Some conservatives have also complained about the precedent of letting Democrats decide which agencies receive funding through the normal appropriations process.
"The problem is that what they're doing is they're placing the burden on the Republican Party entirely to make sure that we have border security funding and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, because they're going to try to force it into a reconciliation bill," House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade on Friday. "That's a very difficult task. It is a high risk gamble for us to assume that we could do that."
