House Adopts Budget to Unlock $70 Billion for Immigration Enforcement

The House on Wednesday narrowly adopted a Republican budget blueprint that would allow the G.O.P. to blow past Democratic opposition and pour an additional $70 billion into immigration enforcement through the remainder of President Trump’s second term.

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Republicans pushed through the plan, which the Senate adopted last week, on a party-line vote of 215 to 211, with one independent lawmaker voting “present.” That set the stage for the G.O.P. to begin working on a special budget measure, shielded from a filibuster in the Senate, to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, the two agencies charged with carrying out the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

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The budget plan — which stalled in the House for more than five hours as Republicans fought among themselves over measures on agriculture and ethanol that had nothing to do with immigration — was part of the two-track strategy that Republicans agreed to earlier this month to reopen the Department of Homeland Security, whose funding lapsed on Feb. 14.

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Approval of the budget plan was a crucial first step for Republicans to begin the reconciliation process, which will deprive Democrats of the ability to block the bill funding ICE and C.B.P. President Trump has directed Congress to pass that measure by June 1.

The spending bill to fund the rest of the department, which has passed the Senate twice without objection, has remained stalled in the House, where Speaker Mike Johnson has yet to bring it to the floor, even as the White House has urged swift passage.

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The budget resolution would allow the two Senate committees that oversee immigration enforcement agencies to write legislation that increases government spending by up to $70 billion each. Republican leaders have said that they expect the total spending amount to be closer to $70 billion in total.

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