April 21, 2026
In case you forgot – and I wouldn’t blame you if you did there’s a lot going on –Homeland Security is still shutdown. The longest shutdown in history. So what does that shutdown have to do with the SAVE America act. Buckle up my friends for the wild journey I’m about to take you on. The Republican controlled House and Senate have a master plan to fund not only fund Homeland Security – but also fund ICE and Customs and Border Protection for years – and maybe get the SAVE America act passed too. But it’s not going to be easy. So I’m going to try in this video to explain what the current plan is… what we’re going to see next week and then we’ll talk about the political reality of getting any of it passed.
Ok – so the normal and easiest way to fund Homeland Security – is to pass an appropriations bill. Which to be clear — should have been passed in September of last year. It’s seven months late. Appropriations bills are just funding bills to give each government department their budget for the year. Homeland Security’s appropriation bill hasn’t passed because — ICE and Customs and Border Protection are part of Homeland Security – and Democrats are refusing to vote for any funding for those agencies until Republicans agree to major reforms to the way ICE and CBP conduct themselves on the streets of America. Republicans and the president refuse to make any of those changes…so Homeland Security is shutdown so the regular funding option is out.
Enter – the Republican’s master plan to get DHS funded…and possibly a bunch of other things too. And stick with me – it’s a doozy. Republicans are planning this two-bill path. Bill number one is a partial appropriations bill to fund all the agencies in Homeland Security except for ICE and CBP. That funding would last through the rest of the fiscal year – which ends on September 30th. Then bill number two is what’s called a reconciliation bill and that bill would fund ICE and CBP separately from the rest of homeland security. Reconciliation bills only need 51 votes – so Senate Republicans can pass this on their own.
This bill has already passed in the Senate. It’s done. All it needs is a vote in the House and it’s finished…but not so fast! The House is sitting on this bill. Speaker Mike Johnson has so far – refused to bring it to the floor for a vote. But why? Because a group of House Republicans hate the idea of separating ICE and CBP funding out of Homeland Security budget. They think it’s a bad precedent…they think it gives Democrats too much power and they don’t think the Senate will move fast enough to fund ICE and CBP through this bill. So right now – the Speaker is holding out on putting this bill on the floor until the Senate makes solid progress on this bill. You with me so far?
The problem is – one– the Senate doesn’t move fast. That’s not how they roll. And two – Senate Republicans can’t agree on what should be included in this reconciliation bill. And all of them need to be on the same page – remember…. I said …reconciliation bills needs 51 vote to pass. There are 53 Senate Republicans so basically of them need to be on board. And right now – they’re not. So the Senate majority leader John Thune is trying get all the Republicans to get behind his idea – which is – keep this bill simple, keep it tight …it needs to fully fund ICE and CBP for the next three and a half years …and that’s it! Nothing else included in the bill. He thinks that’s the easiest and fastest way to get this whole thing done. By the way — the cost – to do this would be anywhere from $60 to $70 billion don’t forget this is on top of the extra $190 billion the Republicans already gave Homeland Security in the Big Beautiful bill last year. So to get this done — the Thune’s plan it to vote on a budget resolution next week – which kicks off the reconciliation process. Now – believe it or not – if Senate Republicans stuck to this plan – they would probably have the votes to get it through both the Senate and the House and it would be done. But it’s not that easy my friends…because other Republican Senators have bigger plans for this reconciliation bill. Some Senate Republicans think they should go all out and dump a bunch of other Republican priorities in it. Like – why not fund Homeland Security for 10 years. And other Republicans are like – wait a minute – how are we going to pay for this? Maybe we should also add some budget cuts to other programs from other departments in this reconciliation bill so we cannot run up the debt. And others say that the SAVE America act which would require proof of citizenship to register to vote should also be included in this bill. Now Senate rules only allow for specific types of provisions to be included in reconciliation bills – they all have to tie into the budget. They generally can’t be policy ideas. So it’s unclear if the SAVE America act in its current form would even qualify for reconciliation– but some Republicans are still pushing for it to be included anyway.
So this is the Republican master plan. I know it’s confusing – and the reality is — it’s completely unclear what’s going to happen next week. But it’s probably safe to say – that if Senator Thune gets his way and this reconciliation bill stays “skinny” as they say – meaning it just includes ICE and CBP funding for 3.5 years. It’ll probably pass. But if all the other Republicans get their way and start dumping a bunch of other things into the bill – all bets are off. We’ll see who wins that fight next week when Senator Thune starts the budget resolution process. Oh and as if this isn’t stressful enough the White House put another deadline on the congress. The president wants all of this done by June 1st.
