Republicans Work To Rewrite Party-Line Immigration Enforcement, Ballroom Funding Bill for Trump

Republicans in the Senate are moving swiftly to rewrite the language of their $70 billion immigration enforcement and ballroom funding bill after the U.S. Senate’s parliamentarian ruled over the weekend that the language of key parts of the bill do not comply with rules that would enable Republicans to pass the legislation without Democratic support. The rules apply to the budget reconciliation process, a legislative device that has become especially popular in recent years among Democrats and Republicans alike, who use it to pass legislation on party-line votes. In order for a bill to be eligible for consideration under reconciliation, all aspects of the legislation must deal primarily with spending and revenue. Each provision must also be authored by the committee of jurisdiction according to a separate budget resolution. On Thursday, the Senate’s parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, ruled that the part of the bill that would give $19.1 billion to the Department of Homeland Security for immigration enforcement could not be passed on a simple-majority vote. On Saturday, her office advised that the $1 billion to be used for construction of President Trump’s ballroom also could not be passed with 51 votes. “While we expect Republicans to change this bill to appease Trump, Democrats are prepared to challenge any change to this bill. We cannot let Republicans waste our national treasure on a mission of chaos and corruption while turning a blind eye to the needs of the American people,” the top Democrat on the Budget Committee, Senator Jeff Merkley, said in a statement. The same day, a spokesman for the majority leader, Senator John Thune, confirmed that parts of the bill are being rewritten in order to comply with the parliamentarian’s advisory opinion. “Redraft. Refine. Resubmit. None of this is abnormal during a Byrd process,” Mr. Thune’s spokesman, Ryan Wrasse, wrote on X, referencing the late senator, Robert Byrd, who created the rule stripping extraneous matters from the reconciliation process. The reconciliation package Republicans are now pushing totals more than $70 billion. Senate Democrats have been blocking funding for ICE, Border Patrol, and Homeland Security Investigations — all of which have been part of the president’s mass deportation campaign — since February, shortly after the killings of two protesters in Minnesota by ICE officers. While the Transportation Security Administration, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and other departments not related to immigration at Homeland Security have been reopened thanks to a bipartisan agreement, immigration enforcement remains shuttered. The goal of Republicans now is to fund all of the deportation agencies through the end of Mr. Trump’s term. The real hurdle for the reconciliation package, however, is not the politics of immigration — it’s the politics of handing the executive branch $1 billion to use for the construction of a ballroom amid a spike in energy costs and an ensuing reemergence of higher-than-normal inflation. A poll by Yahoo and YouGov last October found that the overwhelming majority of Americans did not approve of building a ballroom to replace the East Wing of the White House. Only 25 percent of Americans approved of the ballroom project, the survey shows, while 61 percent disapproved. Another poll from the Washington Post, ABC News, and Ipsos last year found only 28 percent of Americans approved of the ballroom construction even with private funding. With another congressional recess looming the week of Memorial Day, lawmakers on Capitol Hill are hoping to pass the reconciliation bill by the end of this week. Democrats have vowed to make that process as painful as possible, including by putting vulnerable incumbent senators on the record about whether or not they support using taxpayer money for the ballroom. Senator Jacky Rosen, a Democrat from Nevada, said she plans to introduce two amendments during the voting to try to redirect the $1 billion from the ballroom to federal grants for state and local law enforcement.

Republicans Work To Rewrite Party-Line Immigration Enforcement, Ballroom Funding Bill for Trump

Republicans Work To Rewrite Party-Line Immigration Enforcement, Ballroom Funding Bill for Trump

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