By Caitlin Yilek
Updated on: April 29, 2026 / CBS News
Washington — The House on Wednesday adopted a Senate-approved budget resolution designed to let Republicans fund immigration enforcement agencies for the remainder of President Trump’s term without Democratic votes.
Senate Republicans unveiled and adopted the budget blueprint last week. The plan aims to meet Mr. Trump’s June deadline to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol and to end the funding lapse that has left the Department of Homeland Security partially shut down since February.
The resolution passed the House 215-211 and directs the committees overseeing ICE and Border Patrol to draft legislation to provide about $70 billion to those agencies. Adoption of the resolution itself simply clears the procedural hurdle to begin crafting that legislation; both chambers will still need to approve any funding bills. Republicans plan to fund other DHS components on a separate track.
Republican urgency to fund DHS increased after Saturday’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting, lawmakers said. Democrats counter that most of DHS could be funded immediately by the bipartisan bill the Senate passed in March, but House GOP leaders declined to bring that bill to the floor because of conservative opposition that wanted the package tied to voter ID provisions.
In a memo to lawmakers, the Office of Management and Budget warned DHS “will soon run out of critical operating funds, placing essential personnel and operations at risk.” The memo said the administration will be unable to pay personnel beginning in May, despite the president’s direction to identify available funds.
Wednesday’s vote included GOP infighting: what was expected to be quick became an hourslong ordeal after some House Republicans rebelled over language in an unrelated farm bill. Democrats have said they will not fund ICE and Border Patrol without reforms, and differences between House and Senate Republicans over splitting DHS funding have prolonged the impasse.
At the end of March, the Senate approved a measure funding most of DHS but excluding ICE and Border Patrol, with the intent to use budget reconciliation to pass immigration enforcement funding. Reconciliation allows the Senate to pass certain budget-related legislation with a simple majority, bypassing the 60-vote filibuster threshold.
“We have been forced by the Democrats to use the reconciliation process to ensure that these two important agencies are funded,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said last week.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said the House will move the reconciliation measure first and then take up the Senate-passed bill that funds the rest of DHS — agencies like TSA, the Secret Service, the Coast Guard and FEMA. Some House Republicans, however, object to the broader DHS bill, saying it contains language that effectively zeroes out funding for immigration enforcement.
“It has some problematic language because it was haphazardly drafted,” Johnson said, adding his chamber has a “modified version” that will be “much better for both chambers.” Thune defended the Senate measure, saying the upper chamber “did everything we can to ensure that everything is appropriately funded.”
Johnson rejected suggestions of a rift among House Republicans, the Senate and the White House. “Everybody understands what we’re doing,” he said. “We’re all one team. We’re working together. I met with Leader Thune two hours ago. He knows exactly what we’re doing.”
Patrick Maguire, Ibrahim Aksoy and Jaala Brown contributed to this report.