Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Thursday that GOP leaders want to make sure Republicans in both chambers are aligned as they move ahead with a party-line plan for immigration enforcement funding.
The South Dakota Republican told reporters he hopes the Senate will adopt a budget framework “by middle-to-the-end of next week,” the first step to unlocking the filibuster-skirting power to clear a package of up to $75 billion for ICE and Border Patrol.
Then ideally the House would adopt the Senate budget measure without changes, Thune said, allowing Republicans to move on to passage votes on a final bill to fund the immigration enforcement agencies.
“We’re communicating as much as we can, making sure that we’re syncing this up and doing it in the way that meets the requirements that both bodies have,” Thune said Thursday, following a meeting Wednesday with Speaker Mike Johnson for a routine check-in.
The attempt at GOP unity comes after House Republicans hotly rejected the Senate’s proposal last month to fund most of the Department of Homeland Security, where funding lapsed more than two months ago. Now several House GOP lawmakers are also insisting Republicans fund all of the department through the party-line budget reconciliation process — not just the immigration agencies Democrats won’t support without new rules on the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement tactics.
Senate Budget Chair Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told reporters Thursday afternoon that he hopes to release text of the budget framework in short order.
“We’re working on all that. Hopefully we’ll find consensus here soon. But I think we’re getting close,” he said.
“I hope we can get moving on it as early as next week,” Graham added.
Senate Republicans have started talking to their chamber’s parliamentarian as they seek to enact the party-line package — one piece of their two-part plan to end the DHS shutdown that began in mid-February.
