House approves Senate budget reconciliation framework, domestic surveillance authority extension

WASHINGTON (CN) — House Republicans on Wednesday paved the way for a budget reconciliation process unlocking stalled funding for U.S. immigration enforcement, a step toward ending a monthslong shutdown at the Department of Homeland Security.

The lower chamber, in a 215-211 vote, agreed to a Senate-passed framework for the reconciliation process, which will allow GOP lawmakers to set the budgets for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol without input from Democrats.

While the measure itself does not fund those agencies, it does lay the fiscal groundwork for Congress to begin drafting final reconciliation bills — work that can begin now that both chambers have approved the initial resolution.

But the budget framework didn’t pass the House without some serious heartburn for Republican leadership, which has been navigating a maze of complaints and objections from its rank-and-file on several of its key legislative priorities this week, including reconciliation. Some Republicans had expressed concern about the size of the proposed reconciliation bill, which leadership has said will be “skinny” and only include funding for ICE and Border Patrol.

And other GOP lawmakers have vocalized their reservations about the two-pronged process by which party leaders plan to unfreeze homeland security funding, a gambit that pairs the reconciliation process with a separate appropriations bill setting the remainder of the agency’s budget.

On Wednesday evening, however, it was unrelated concerns which dragged proceedings to a near halt. Republican lawmakers from midwestern states, furious about a leadership push to hold separate votes on the multiyear farm bill, staged a mini-revolt which held up a final vote on the budget reconciliation measure for more than five hours.

Ultimately, concerns about the reconciliation framework were not enough to spell its doom. Just two Republicans voted against the measure alongside all House Democrats.

Following the vote Wednesday night, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise told reporters the razor-thin margins were an expected outcome for Republicans who control a slim margin in the lower chamber.

“This is how every close vote is,” said the Louisiana Republican, adding work would continue on the homeland security budget Thursday morning.

Democrats, meanwhile, panned the resolution’s passage as Congress setting the stage to hand a major cash injection to the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement agenda.

In a statement Wednesday night, Pennsylvania Representative Brendan Boyle — the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee — panned what he called a “reckless” spending effort by Republicans.

“House and Senate Republicans just paved the way to hand ICE and CBP another $70 billion without any reforms or accountability,” wrote Boyle. “Republicans keep telling working families we cannot afford healthcare or relief from the cost-of-living crisis they continue to make worse, but they never seem to have a problem writing massive checks for these out-of-control agencies.”

The Homeland Security Department has been shut down since late February following a revolt from Senate Democrats who refused to approve the agency’s budget amid backlash to the Trump administration’s deadly immigration enforcement crackdown on Minneapolis. Democrats said they would not vote on any new funding for DHS until Republicans agreed to back major reforms to ICE and Border Patrol operations.

After weeks of stalemate that saw federal disaster response hampered and airport security hamstrung, the Senate approved a proposed two-part DHS funding plan, which peeled certain immigration enforcement spending off from the main agency budget.

The budget reconciliation plan lays out roughly $70 billion to fund immigration enforcement programs through the end of President Donald Trump’s second term.

Though the House has approved that measure, it remains to be seen how Republicans will tackle the separate DHS appropriations bill, also passed by the Senate. House Speaker Mike Johnson this week said he thought parts of the bill were “haphazardly drafted” and should change. The top House Republican proposed an alternate measure that strips out provisions in the Senate bill that set the budgets of ICE and Border Patrol to zero.

Any change to the Senate-passed appropriations legislation, however, would need to return to the upper chamber for approval. The White House has called for “immediate passage” of the upper chamber’s budget bill.

Meanwhile, the House on Wednesday also passed a controversial extension to government surveillance powers set out in Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The renewal, which cleared the lower chamber on a 235-191 vote, comes just hours before the program was set to expire on Thursday.

Extending FISA authority, which gives the government power to spy on certain people abroad, was a major hurdle for House Republicans who faced dissent in their own party over the lack of warrant requirements for such surveillance.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have worried Section 702 authority is overly permissive and that it opens the door for government surveillance on American citizens. Maryland Representative Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said Wednesday the House-passed extension was a “permission slip” to the Trump administration to surveil Americans.

But proponents of Section 702 powers pointed out the House bill contains reforms to improve congressional oversight of surveillance programs.

“Many of us understand the significant advantage 702 provides to U.S. national security and the fervent need to protect Americans’ privacy and civil liberties,” said Arkansas Representative Rick Crawford, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. “We should not sacrifice one for the other, and this legislation, passed by the House, strikes that balance.”

Though the bill, which extends Section 702 powers for three years, managed to clear the House, it faces a more uncertain path in the Senate.

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