WASHINGTON — The House of Representatives has greenlit a staggering $70 billion funding package for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol, pushing the legislation to President Donald Trump’s desk for final approval. The vote, held on June 9, split largely along party lines at 214-212, with the Senate having passed it the previous week. Only one Republican, Alaska’s Senator Lisa Murkowski, joined Democrats in opposing the measure.
The Secure America Act’s passage in the House clears the last major hurdle for a bill that has become a flashpoint in the GOP’s agenda ahead of the midterm elections. The debate over immigration enforcement funding has raged on Capitol Hill for months, intensifying after federal agents fatally shot two Minnesotans earlier this year. The new funding deepens the partisan rift over support for ICE and Border Patrol, and may rank among the last significant legislative victories for House Republicans, who hold a slim majority.
The agencies were excluded from a broader Homeland Security appropriations bill passed in late April, following a record-long partial government shutdown. Democrats, citing the shootings of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti, refused to back additional immigration enforcement funding without sweeping reforms. “Republicans gave ICE $170 billion last July, and in less than one year, they want to give them $70 billion more,” said Representative Morgan McGarvey, a Kentucky Democrat, on the House floor. “That’s $240 billion in honest-to-God storm troopers.”
Facing united Democratic opposition, Republicans turned to reconciliation, a budget process that bypasses the Senate’s 60-vote threshold and allows passage with a simple majority. Ahead of the vote, GOP lawmakers lambasted Democrats for what they called an anti-law enforcement stance. “It’s a travesty to hear such denigrating terms, to see my colleagues in the United States House chamber vilifying people who wear the uniform on behalf of all of us and our families,” said Representative Jodey Arrington, a Texas Republican.
The bill now heads to President Trump, who is expected to sign it into law.
