Republican lawmakers who back the tougher immigration policies touted by President-elect Donald Trump and top leaders on his transition team have started plotting how to use unified control of government next year to best address funding and policy goals of the next administration.
Senate Republicans are planning as much as $85 billion for border security as part of an initial bill for budget reconciliation, the process that enables the chamber to get around the 60-vote threshold needed to overcome a filibuster on legislation. The GOP is set to have a 53-47 majority next year.
Much of what Republicans plan to do with immigration legislation and spending bills depends on what can be included in that reconciliation process, and what moves the Trump administration makes with executive actions and immigration enforcement.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., said at a press conference Wednesday that Congress and the Trump transition team are working closely so lawmakers can “hit the ground running and be on the same page” on a variety of issues, such as energy costs, the tax code as well as “border security that so many people are counting on.”
“That work has already begun. Those meetings are already taking place between our leadership, House and Senate, as well as President Trump’s transition team. They’re not waiting until Inauguration Day.”
Stephen Miller, tapped by Trump to become White House deputy chief of staff for policy, laid out details for congressional action in an appearance Sunday on Fox News, saying incoming Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D, and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., have pledged to get a border funding package to Trump’s desk “in January or early February.”
“That would mean a massive increase in [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] officers working on the deportation operation … that would mean a historic increase in border agents, a pay raise for both, full funding for military operations, full funding for ICE beds, full funding for air and marine operations, full funding for all of the barriers and technology you need to ensure there’s never another gotaway entering this country,” Miller said.
Trump also plans executive orders to bolster congressional action and initiate his campaign promises, Miller said, which would “seal the border shut” and include mass deportation of undocumented immigrants in the United States. Those administrative actions, Miller said, would be concurrent with “the largest investment in immigration and border security.”
“What the Senate has talked about doing is giving the president, within a week or two of taking the oath of office, the most significant domestic policy achievement in at least 50 years,” Miller said. “Our border patrol, our ICE officers, and every element of our domestic security operation will be fully funded to take down the cartels, and eradicate the criminal gang threat in this country once and for all.”
Graham, the incoming Senate Budget Committee chairman, said last week the priorities for the border piece in reconciliation includes finishing the border wall, “but to have technology that really gives you eyes and ears on the border. Hire the people necessary to start the deportations of the bad guys and crooks and gangs and more capacity to hold the people.”
Policy questions
But there are differing items Republicans might try to pass through budget reconciliation, amid uncertainty about what might make it through a process that deals only with spending and revenue.
Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., noted at the news conference last week that Trump has already gotten changes, including a pledge from Mexico to take action to stop the flow of illegal immigration, human trafficking and fentanyl across the border.
House Republicans have expressed an appetite to advance another bill similar to the tough-on-immigration package the chamber approved earlier this year but stalled in the Senate. Some of the components could be included in reconciliation, but others would not be and would have to be passed in the regular legislative process that would need 60 votes to overcome a Senate filibuster.
Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, an immigration hawk and sponsor of that House-passed bill, said last month that the reconciliation process would provide Congress a means to enable ICE to conduct removals.
“We’re going to need to make sure we’ve got the resources necessary for more security and so that all we can deal with, plus fees, remittances should be taxed that are going out in foreign countries to pay for a lot of this stuff, as well as parole fees for those who have been paroled into the United States, I believe, unlawfully and illegitimately,” Roy said. “But I think they should be paying fees while they’re here to process all this stuff.”
But Roy also said he still sees a need to pass the House’s border and immigration package. Roy said he expects the bill to be reintroduced and “within a 95 percent kind of confidence” the same bill as before, although “you can always add a tweak or two.”
“There might be some provisions of that that can get put into reconciliation,” Roy said. “For example, border wall … ICE funding, border control funding, those kinds of things, plus the fees process that I described all that can go reconciliation.”
Roy said ultimately the plans will be coordinated with the Trump team, saying he has conversations with the transition on immigration, but “he’s got to go get his personnel picked.”
Roy said he’s been in talks with officials like Tom Homan, Trump’s pick to be border czar, and they’re in “complete agreement with what we need to try to do, but I don’t want to speak for them.”
Homan will likely be a key leader from the Trump administration on immigration, in coordination with Miller and Trump’s pick to be Homeland Security Secretary, Kristi Noem, who would need to be confirmed by the Senate.
Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla. among the lawmakers who created a bipartisan border deal this year, said last week that he also sees a role for reconciliation in assisting the Trump administration on immigration efforts.
“When you look at things like increasing dollars for deportation, flights, detention, personnel, and a lot of things that can be done with reconciliation — but you can’t do the policy,” Lankford said.
But as of last week that plan isn’t set in stone. Asked about the certainty of that happening, Lankford replied, “I think that’s not been resolved yet, but those are things I think would be eligible.”
Lankford added the same budget process could be used to bolster the National Vetting Center, an initiative that assesses the level of risk for those crossing the border he says has been “underfunded for a quite while.”
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