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Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, is calling for Republicans to provide Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) with enough funding to last a decade.
He believes Republicans can do that without the support of a single Democrat.
“We can do it with just 50 votes,” Cruz said.
Lawmakers in the Senate agreed early on Friday to advance funding for DHS that includes the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the Coast Guard, the Secret Service and seven other agencies — even as gridlock over ICE remains firmly in place.
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Cruz believes that Democrat opposition to funding the agency will only continue, promoting the possibility of future shutdowns.
“I think we may very well be in a world where these Senate Democrats will never again vote to fund ICE, that they’re simply saying, ‘shut down,’” Cruz said.
Like the rest of DHS, funding for ICE lapsed on February 14 when Democrats made their support for the agency conditional on a set of 10 operational reforms.
Among other items, Democrats had called for a ban on masks for ICE agents, stiffer warrant requirements for apprehending suspects in public, a ban on roaming patrols and requirements for clearly visible identification — demands Republicans argued would handcuff Trump’s immigration enforcement goals.
Cruz believes Republicans can still advance funding without meeting any of those demands through a process called “reconciliation” that would allow Republicans to get around a filibuster.
“You need 60 votes to pass funding for the government. We only have 53 Republicans, and so we need at least seven Democrats. Reconciliation, which is how we passed the [Big Beautiful Bill] last year, we can do with just Republicans,” Cruz said.
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“And so, what I’ve argued to my colleagues is let’s take up reconciliation, and let’s fund ICE for the next decade, because the Democrats are going to vote against ICE funding for the foreseeable future, I think, potentially forever,” Cruz said.
While lawmakers can’t use that vehicle to change existing policies or set new ones, Cruz argues Republicans can certainly use it to add to ICE’s existing provisions, putting the agency’s funding beyond the influence of another shutdown.
In some ways, it’s a plan Republicans have already done once before.
Republicans funded ICE to the tune of $75 billion last year through Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill. Cruz’s plan would take the same principle and extend it. At levels from 2025, base funding ICE and its removal operations for 10 years would cost roughly $100 billion.
Cruz believes passing those appropriations is consistent with the mandate Republicans received when they won over a governing trifecta in the 2024 elections.
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“The American people said, enough. President Trump and Republican Congress have an incredible record of success on securing the border. We have seen illegal border crossings drop 99%. We’ve seen the murder rate across the country drop 20%. We’ve seen the drug overdose rate nationally drop 20%.
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“It is literally the case that there are thousands of Americans alive today because President Trump was reelected, and because we have a Republican House and Senate.”
Instead of passing the Senate’s plan, the House advanced its own package late Friday night, which would extend DHS funding at current levels for two months, buying more time for lawmakers to continue negotiations over ICE.
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