Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer sidestepped whether he supported new border security funding during a press conference slamming Congressional Republicans’ budget proposal Thursday.
The Republican budget resolution that passed both chambers floats up to $175 billion in new spending for immigration enforcement. Schumer led every Senate Democrat in opposing the budget blueprint, which lays the groundwork to fund Trump’s border security efforts and enact some of the president’s other legislative priorities in a forthcoming bill.
The funding is intended to finish border wall construction, hire additional Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers and increase the number of detention beds to hold illegal migrants, according to Senate Budget Committee chairman Lindsey Graham.
The Trump administration has achieved remarkable success in getting border crossings at the southern border to record lows. There were just over 7,000 border patrol encounters in March, marking a decrease of roughly 130,000 from March 2024 under former President Joe Biden, according to a White House fact sheet.
ICE is facing a $2 billion budget shortfall for this fiscal year, Axios scooped in March. White House border czar Tom Homan and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem are requesting additional resources to carry out the president’s deportation agenda with full force.
The Daily Caller News Foundation asked Schumer whether he supported new border security spending, but he pivoted to attacking the Republicans’ overall budget proposal.
“Look the bottom line is very simple — their overall budget is awful and it has huge cuts to Medicaid, to SNAP, to housing, to veterans up and across the board, even cuts on Social Security when they indirectly hurt it to give tax breaks to billionaires,” Schumer said. “It’s a terrible budget and we’re going to fight it tooth and nail — the whole thing.”
Trump has emphasized that he will not sign legislation that cuts Americans’ benefits from key entitlement programs. Moreover, the budget reconciliation rules do not allow Congress to make changes to Social Security, which Democratic Rep. Brendan Boyle of Pennsylvania, ranking member of the House Budget Committee, has acknowledged.
“The Democrats are out right now trying to make hay out of the fact that we’re going to gut Medicaid and all these other things, is simply not true,” Speaker Mike Johnson said Thursday during a joint press conference with Senate Majority Leader John Thune. “We’re going to protect the essential programs for everybody who’s eligible to receive those. And you’ll see that reflected in the final bill.”
Congressional Republicans’ budget resolution also authorizes additional defense spending, sets new onshore and offshore oil and gas lease sales and allows for a permanent extension of the president’s 2017 Tax Cuts.
Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso torched his Democratic colleagues Thursday for voting against the border security funding in the Republicans’ budget resolution.
“When it came to the floor … Senate Democrats voted unanimously against border security,” Barrasso, a Wyoming Republican, said on the Senate floor. “One after another, as their names were called, voted ‘No’. They weren’t going to secure the border. They weren’t interested. They wanted to leave it wide open and continue to invite in the criminal cartels and the drug dealers.”
“For four years, Senate Democrats welcomed open borders policies that left our communities vulnerable,” Barrasso added. “Democrats in this body last week still support those reckless, irresponsible policies of open borders.”
Just 12 Senate Democrats voted for the Laken Riley Act in January. The legislation requires federal immigration authorities to detain illegal migrants who are accused of committing an array of criminal offenses. Schumer opposed the immigration enforcement legislation, citing “deficiencies in the bill.”
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