House clears GOP’s $70B ICE bill with no guardrails

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) after ICE-Border Patrol funding vote

(Image credit: Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)

What happened

The House on Tuesday gave final approval to $70 billion for ICE and Border Patrol using a budget reconciliation process that bypassed the need for any Democratic votes. The bill passed 214-212 along party lines. The Senate narrowly approved the bill last week. The funds are expected to pay for President Donald Trump’s migrant crackdown through the rest of his term.

The bill’s passage capped “months of bitter gridlock that began in late January” when Democrats demanded reforms to ICE after agents killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis, The Wall Street Journal said. This was a “major victory” for GOP leaders, The New York Times said. But “what began as a measure that unified Republicans eager to support” Trump’s hard-line deportation campaign had “devolved in recent weeks into a political albatross.”

The legislation “got sidetracked” over the $1 billion request for Trump’s White House ballroom and by thwarted bipartisan efforts to block his “politically toxic” $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund, The Associated Press said. The ballroom funds were “scrapped,” but like the $140 billion Republicans gave ICE and Border Patrol last year, this new $70 billion “will come with virtually no strings attached.”

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