Senate Republicans pushed a budget resolution across the finish line shortly after 3:30 a.m. EDT Thursday, surviving a grueling all-night session and a barrage of Democratic amendments designed to fracture the GOP majority. The 50-48 vote sets the stage for a budget reconciliation package next month that would fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol through 2029, and reopen a Department of Homeland Security that has been shut down since Valentine's Day.
Two Republicans broke ranks. Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Rand Paul of Kentucky joined every Democrat in opposing the measure. But the rest of the conference held, delivering Senate Majority Leader John Thune a procedural win he needs to move immigration enforcement funding without facing a Democratic filibuster.
The resolution, unveiled earlier this week by Senate Budget Committee Chair Lindsey Graham, instructs the Senate Homeland Security Committee and the Senate Judiciary Committee to draft legislation fully funding ICE and Border Patrol for three and a half years. Each panel must produce a bill adding no more than $70 billion to the deficit over a decade, giving them combined room for up to $140 billion, though GOP aides say the final price tag will land around half that.
The urgency is not theoretical. DHS funding lapsed on Feb. 14, and the department has been operating under emergency measures ever since. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin warned Tuesday on "Fox & Friends" that the clock is nearly out.
Mullin put the situation in blunt terms:
"I've got one payroll left, and there is no more emergency funds, so the president can't do another executive order because there's no more money there."
Thune echoed the warning on the Senate floor, telling colleagues that emergency funding is "going to run out pretty soon." He framed Thursday's vote as one piece of a larger effort.
"We have a multistep process ahead of us, but at the end, Republicans will have helped ensure that America's borders are secure and prevented Democrats from defunding these important agencies."
The planned reconciliation package, estimated at between $70 billion and $80 billion, would bypass the 60-vote filibuster threshold and pass on a simple majority. But the Senate resolution alone does not get it done. The House must first pass its own budget resolution, and the two chambers will then need to reconcile any differences before the actual spending bill can move.
Senate rules allow an unlimited number of amendments to a budget resolution, and Democrats used every inch of that latitude. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer made clear before the voting began that the goal was to force Republicans into politically painful positions. He spoke on the floor Thursday night in terms that left little to the imagination.
"This reconciliation, or this budget act, will show who's on whose side, and clearly if Republicans vote against our amendments, they're not on the side of the American people."
The strategy produced a handful of GOP defections on individual amendments, even as the broader resolution survived. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, Sen. Dan Sullivan of Alaska, and Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri all crossed party lines on amendments related to out-of-pocket health care costs, reversing cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and holding insurance companies accountable for delaying or denying medical care. Collins, Sullivan, and Hawley also created a point of order against any reconciliation bill that fails to address insurance company practices.
Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont offered an amendment directing the Budget Committee chair to take action to slash prescription drug prices by more than 50 percent. Sanders said the proposal would codify the president's executive order establishing "most favored nation" drug pricing. Collins, Sullivan, and Hawley all voted with Democrats in support of it. The amendment's fate on the broader resolution was part of the marathon session's procedural churn.
None of these defections, however, threatened the final vote on the resolution itself. That distinction matters. Democrats wanted to create campaign-trail footage. Republicans wanted to get to reconciliation. Both sides got a piece of what they came for, but only one side moved the ball on actual legislation.
Not every Republican amendment succeeded, either. Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana pushed to include the SAVE America Act, described as one of President Trump's top legislative priorities, in the reconciliation package. His amendment would have instructed the Senate Rules Committee to draft election legislation requiring proof of citizenship to vote, voter identity verification, and ballot counting within 36 hours of Election Day.
It failed 48-50. Four Republicans voted no: Murkowski, Collins, Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, and Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. The defeat suggests that election-integrity provisions may face a harder road in the Senate than border-security funding, even within the GOP conference. Recent Senate clashes have shown how individual Republican senators can shape outcomes when margins are this thin.
Sen. Rand Paul's amendment drew the most lopsided defeat of the night. He proposed offsetting the projected $70 billion cost of the reconciliation package by eliminating $5 billion in refugee welfare funding, cutting $4 billion from the National Science Foundation, and shrinking the Department of Education by 16 percent.
It failed 24-74. The margin tells its own story: the Senate appetite for deep spending cuts remains limited, even among Republicans who talk about fiscal discipline. Paul then voted against the final resolution as well, making him one of only two GOP holdouts.
Narrow 50-48 outcomes in the Senate are not unusual in recent years, but they always carry risk. A 2021 debt-ceiling extension cleared the Senate by the same 50-48 margin after Mitch McConnell engineered a procedural workaround. The pattern is familiar: razor-thin majorities, late-night votes, and a handful of defectors who keep leadership guessing until the final tally.
The Senate vote solves one problem and exposes another. Speaker Mike Johnson holds the next card. Before Easter, Thune struck a deal with Senate colleagues to pass a bill funding most of DHS, everything except immigration enforcement. Republican senators agreed after being told Johnson was on board.
Johnson then refused to bring the Senate-passed measure to the House floor without ICE and Border Patrol money included. This week, he told reporters he will not move the Senate-passed Homeland Security appropriations bill until the Senate also passes the reconciliation package. That means DHS remains in limbo while the two chambers work through separate budget resolutions and, eventually, a conference process.
Thune acknowledged the challenge but projected confidence. High-stakes Senate votes have increasingly become multi-step affairs, and this one is no exception.
"I think that message is being delivered and hopefully will be received, and we can get moving forward with making sure those agencies are funded."
The marathon vote exposed fault lines that will shape the reconciliation fight ahead. Democrats insisted throughout negotiations that any funding for ICE and Border Patrol must come with reforms, requiring federal officers to obtain judicial warrants and banning them from wearing masks during enforcement operations. The White House negotiated with Senate Democrats for weeks but failed to reach a deal.
That failure pushed Republicans toward reconciliation, a tool that lets them bypass the filibuster entirely. It also means Democrats will have no direct leverage over the final bill's contents. Their only play now is political: forcing amendment votes and hoping the footage sticks.
The broader context matters. The Trump administration has been winning a series of institutional fights across branches of government, and this budget resolution fits that pattern. Senate Republicans absorbed a long night of political theater and emerged with the procedural vehicle they need to fund border enforcement on their own terms.
The reconciliation package still has to survive committee drafting, a House-Senate conference, and final passage in both chambers. Close Senate votes on GOP priorities have become a recurring feature of this Congress, and the margin for error remains essentially zero.
DHS has been shut down for months. ICE agents and Border Patrol officers are working without a guaranteed next paycheck. Democrats chose to block funding rather than approve it without their preferred reforms. And now Republicans have chosen the only path left to get it done without Democratic cooperation.
The people who enforce America's immigration laws shouldn't have to wonder whether Congress will pay them. The fact that it took an all-night session and a party-line vote just to start the process tells you everything about who is serious about border security, and who would rather play games with it.