Senate Panel Approves $4.6 Billion in Emergency Border Funding
Senators Reach Bipartisan Deal on a Border Funding Package
(Bloomberg) -- The Senate Appropriations Committee advanced $4.6 billion in emergency funds sought by the Trump administration to handle a surge in migration at the U.S. border with Mexico.
The bipartisan measure, approved on a 30-1 vote Wednesday, includes $793 million for Customs and Border Protection migrant care and processing facilities, $112 million for medical care and supplies such as clothing and hygiene products, and $300 million for U.S. marshals and the military services.
“Most importantly it does not include poison pills from either party,” said Senate Appropriations Chairman Richard Shelby, a Republican from Alabama.
Republicans and Democrats on the panel reached an agreement on the plan a day earlier. President Donald Trump requested the funds on May 1, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said the Senate will vote on border funds by the end of next week.
Because of squabbles over immigration policy, the border funding was left out of a $19.1 billion disaster aid package signed into law earlier this month.
Democrats dropped a demand to block Trump’s plan to cut aid to Central American countries, an issue they said they hope to take up in a “second-level negotiation” on immigration policy issues, Democratic Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois told reporters.
Durbin said he met Tuesday on those issues with Trump senior adviser Jared Kushner and Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham.
Graham told reporters he wants to take “a couple of weeks” to negotiate a compromise on more complex immigration issues. Graham said Congress needs to revamp the laws created by the Flores court settlement, which limits detention of children and has led to what Trump has called “catch and release” of undocumented immigrants.
‘Never Stops’
“If we don’t change our asylum laws and the Flores decision, this never stops,” said Graham, a South Carolina Republican.
The Senate emergency measure contains no funds for Trump’s border wall and no money for additional detention by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which Democrats have opposed.
The bill also bars the Trump administration from transferring funds to be used for other purposes. Democrats have sought to ensure that funds in the package wouldn’t be used to build the border wall or pay for raids on undocumented immigrants within the U.S.
House Democrats are aware of the proposal but haven’t signed off, said Senate panel spokeswoman Blair Taylor.
The House plans to vote on a separate border package next week, Representative Henry Cuellar, a Texas Democrat, said earlier. If that plan differs from the Senate effort, the House and Senate could convene a conference committee to work out the differences.
The Senate measure also includes $110 million for travel and overtime for the Department of Homeland Security, $70 million for ICE travel and overtime, and $45 million for detainee medical care at ICE.
Durbin said Democrats won an important victory by excluding funds for expanded ICE detention capacity. That was particularly important, Durbin said, after Trump tweeted on Monday that ICE “will begin the process of removing the millions of illegal aliens who have illicitly found their way into the United States. They will be removed as fast as they come in.”
“We don’t want to appropriate a penny, as Democrats, to support his massive ICE policy,” Durbin said.
To contact the reporters on this story: Jack Fitzpatrick in Washington, D.C. at jfitzpatri53@bloomberg.net;Erik Wasson in Washington at ewasson@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Joe Sobczyk at jsobczyk@bloomberg.net, Laurie Asséo, Wendy Benjaminson
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