Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer slams Republicans’ late-night ICE funding bill

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer tore into Senate Republicans on Thursday for passing a bill that could potentially see ICE and Border Patrol receive up to $140 billion in funding. The Senate passed the bill with a 50-48 vote in the early hours of Thursday. Taking the podium, Schumer claimed that Senate Republicans did not stand with “families struggling with the high cost of childcare, groceries, gasoline, and electricity,” so they could instead direct $140 billion to “rogue agencies.”

“All night long, we gave the Republicans a chance to do the right thing by voting for our amendments,” he added. Schumer claimed that Democrats had put forward amendments to lower childcare costs, out-of-pocket healthcare costs, stop insurance company delays, protect school meals, and help people at grocery stores. However, they were all met with rejection. “What kind of a bubble are they living in? How apart are they from people’s real needs?” he asked.

Earlier, Senate Republicans joined Democrats to send a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) funding bill to the House to end the longest partial government shutdown in the country’s history. However, that bill barred ICE and Border Patrol from receiving any money. As a result, Republicans have adopted an alternative strategy, which is more time-consuming than the traditional method. According to a report in The Washington Post, the GOP’s recent bill will fund ICE and Border Patrol without Democratic support.

The bill would be enacted under budget reconciliation rules, meaning a simple majority in the Senate would allow it to pass rather than the 60 votes usually needed to overcome a filibuster. “Republicans can rest assured that when reconciliation comes back up in a few weeks, they are going to have to face these votes again. Democrats will make sure that they do. We will continue to force vote after vote for the most pressing issue facing Americans today. Their high, high, all too high costs,” Schumer added.

The budget resolution would allow Congress to fund ICE and Border Patrol with up to $140 billion. However, according to an anonymous Senate leadership aide, the GOP plans on using half of that amount. The money would fund the two federal agencies until the end of President Trump’s term. DHS funding will run out at the end of this month, and the Senate has already sent a bipartisan bill to the House to fund the department, barring ICE and Border Patrol, which have been held up in the House.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries lashed out at Republicans for passing the bill to fund ICE and Border Patrol before taking up the one already in the system. "Republicans have made clear that their priority is to continue to fund ICE and the violent Trump mass deportation machine as opposed to making life better for the American people,” he said. He also claimed that House Republicans have “refused to take up” the bipartisan bill since they wanted to “jam their extreme ideology down the throats of the American people.”

The recent resolution, passed in the Senate, did not have 100% support from Republicans. Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Rand Paul voted against the measure. House Speaker Mike Johnson endorsed the bipartisan bill sent earlier, but held off on voting on it as the ICE and Border Patrol funding resolution could have been defeated in the Senate. “The sequencing is important. We’ve got to make sure we don’t isolate and make an orphan out of key agencies of the department,” he said.