Federal immigration officers were at the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport on March 23, 2026, to help with airport security during the shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security. (Photo by Ross Williams/Georgia Recorder)
WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Republicans approved a budget resolution early Thursday intended to speed the way for billions for immigration enforcement, sending the measure to the House, where GOP lawmakers in that chamber need to adopt it to unlock the reconciliation process.
The 50-48 vote followed a marathon amendment voting session that Democrats used to highlight policy differences on cost-of-living issues and stalled federal emergency relief dollars for states.
Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul were the two Republicans to vote against approving the measure. Sens. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and Mark Warner, D-Va., did not vote.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said just before the vote-a-rama began that Democrats would put Republicans on the record about the soaring cost of living and the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
“America will see even more clearly tonight where the Republicans are — not on the side of lowering costs, but on the side of masked agents occupying our streets,” he said.
Republicans plan to use the complex budget reconciliation process, which avoids the need for Democratic support in the Senate, to provide between $70 billion and $140 billion in additional funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol.
The money is supposed to cover those agencies for the next three years, avoiding the need for Republicans to negotiate constraints on immigration activities with Democrats, who have been calling for guardrails since federal agents shot and killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis in January.
When combined with the Senate-passed bill that funds the vast majority of the Department of Homeland Security for the current fiscal year, the two pieces of legislation are expected to end the ongoing shutdown at that department, which began in mid-February.
One amendment adopted, 15 turned down
Senators ultimately debated 16 amendments, 12 offered by Democrats and four proposed by Republicans. The only one adopted was from South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, which senators approved on a 98-0 vote.
The proposal would create a reserve fund to bolster federal immigration agents’ ability to detain and deport adults who entered the country without proper documentation and were then convicted of rape, murder, or sexual abuse of a minor.
“Everybody in this body should be for this,” Graham said. “These people need to be caught, put in jail, or kicked out of our country.”
Illinois Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin said he supported the amendment because “under current law, undocumented immigrants who are convicted of rape, murder, or sexual abuse of a minor are subject to mandatory detention and deportation.”
“What we object to is what is happening in the streets of Minneapolis and Chicago,” he added.
SAVE America Act sidelined
Louisiana Republican Sen. John Kennedy tried but was ultimately unable to convince his colleagues to add a new set of instructions to the budget resolution that would have allowed the Rules & Administration Committee to write a voter identification law.
Kennedy said he wanted that bill to have three provisions.
“Require that in federal elections, you have to be an American citizen to vote and provide for the provisions to enforce that. Number two, it would require that in federal elections, you have to prove you are who you say you are in order to vote, and it would provide provisions to enforce that,” he said. “Number three, it further instructs the Rules Committee that we’re going to go back to having an Election Day and not an election month, and it instructs the Rules Committee to provide the provisions to enforce that.”
California Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla, the ranking member of the rules panel, opposed the amendment during debate, saying he couldn’t believe lawmakers were once again experiencing a “partisan attempt to rush through what I refer to as a solution in search of a problem.”
“Despite the president’s claims, there is zero evidence of massive voter fraud across the country, which is the premise of these proposals,” he said. “So not only is it a solution in search of a problem, to paraphrase a wise man, this measure is all foam and no beer.”
Padilla added that a provision in Kennedy’s amendment would have required states to count ballots within 36 hours of an election, a new mandate he said could cause considerable problems for larger states with millions of voters.
“It’s unfortunate elections administration has been turned into a partisan issue,” he said. “I actually ask our colleagues to protect the early voters, not just in my state but in yours. Protect vote-by-mail opportunities, not just in my state but in yours. Let’s protect women who are married and change their name and their right to vote, not just in my state but in yours.”
Senators did not agree to waive a point of order against Kennedy’s amendment on a 48-50 vote. Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Murkowski and Thom Tillis of North Carolina voted with Democrats.
Ban on Planned Parenthood funding via Medicaid
Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley tried unsuccessfully to create a pathway to extend the one-year prohibition on Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood that the GOP included in its “big, beautiful” law. That funding ban expires on July 4.
Hawley didn’t speak about abortion access during debate but focused his criticism of the organization on gender-affirming health care services for transgender youth.
“Under no circumstance should Medicaid money dedicated to the poor and the needy be used for transgender surgeries and treatments for minor children,” he said. “It is a moral outrage. This body has a duty to stand against it.”
Planned Parenthood’s website states the organization provides surgery referrals as well as hormone therapy, puberty blockers and “transition support.”
Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden argued the amendment represented “Republicans’ latest attempt to strip women of the health care they need and depend on so that they can go score some political points.”
Senators didn’t agree to waive a point of order against the amendment, which would have allowed it to move forward, by a vote of 50-48. Collins and Murkowski voted with Democrats.
Private equity and home ownership
Senators rejected an amendment from Oregon Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley that would have addressed the rising cost of housing after he invoked comments President Donald Trump made during his State of the Union address.
“We have an opportunity tonight to send a message that we agree with the president, that we have a challenge in home ownership, because home ownership is dying,” Merkley said. “And one of the factors is private equity buying up the homes.”
Ohio Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno spoke out against adopting the amendment, saying lawmakers have already addressed it in a bipartisan way.
“I obviously urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment, because we’ve already passed it,” he said. We’ve already solved this problem. In fact, congratulations to all of us. 89 to 10. We banned institutional ownership of single-family homes. I think that’s fantastic.”
The Senate voted in March to approve a bill designed to increase the country’s housing supply, according to reporting from NPR. But since the House has approved a bill of its own, the two chambers will need to work out their differences before any housing bill becomes law.
Senators did not agree to adopt Merkley’s amendment following a 46-52 party-line vote.
Disaster relief funds from FEMA
California Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff proposed an amendment that would have addressed stalled funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which he said is “holding more than $3 billion in disaster relief funding for California.”
“But as we debate this budget resolution, I know our state of California is not alone,” he said. “North Carolina is waiting on millions in relief designated for Hurricane Helene in 2024. Kentucky saw landslides and flooding just weeks after Los Angeles County burned. Florida and the Gulf Coast have also been battered. Texas communities under siege from last year’s floods have still not seen the federal relief their communities need and deserve.”
Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Lankford opposed the amendment, saying that while he agrees FEMA funds need to get to communities, the best way to do that is for the House to pass the annual funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security, which the Senate already approved.
House GOP leaders are holding on to that bill instead of putting it on the floor as they wait for the reconciliation process to play out. That Senate-passed DHS bill funds FEMA and all of the agencies that make up the department except ICE and Border Patrol.
“Our challenge has been, we’ve been in a government shutdown on DHS now for two months,” Lankford said. “We’ve got to be able to get those funds released. That means we’ve got to get DHS funding completely done for all of DHS. We have FEMA employees that are being paid but they don’t have program dollars that they can actually release.”
The Senate rejected the amendment following a 49-49 vote. Collins, Florida Sen. Ashley Moody and Murkowski voted with Democrats.
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