WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans have unveiled a $72 billion spending package that includes tens of billions of dollars for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, billions more for Department of Homeland Security immigration enforcement and, for good measure, an extra billion dollars for President Donald Trump’s White House ballroom project.

The package is broken into two bills, one released by the Senate Judiciary Committee and the other released by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. (You can read the text of these bills here and here.)

Broken down, the GOP package provides $38.2 billion for ICE, $26.1 billion for Customs and Border Patrol, $5 billion for DHS immigration enforcement, $1.5 billion for Department of Justice criminal enforcement, and $1 billion for security for Trump’s ballroom vanity project.

The question of whether Trump has the authority to build a White House ballroom without congressional approval has been tied up in federal court. A district judge rejected Trump’s claim that building this ballroom is a matter of “national security,” but an appeals court last month allowed Trump to proceed with construction, ahead of a June review of the case.

Apparently trying to steer clear of this legal fight, Republicans specified in their spending package that the $1 billion for the ballroom is for the Secret Service to use for security-related aspects. But, as is the case with the rest of this legislation, there is next to no detail about how any of this money will be spent or what oversight there will be.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, called out Senate Republicans for now proposing to spend billions in taxpayer money on the president’s ballroom project, which Trump previously said would be privately funded.

“Republicans have been lying to the public about the cost of this ballroom for over a year,” DeLauro said in a statement. “It has always been about taking taxpayer money to build a lavish venue for billionaire mega-donors to rub elbows with the Trump officials they have bought and paid for.”

The two bills have to go through their respective committees and will be rolled together once they hit the Senate floor, which is expected to happen the week of May 18.

Senate Republicans are moving forward with this package under a special, expedited process known as budget reconciliation, which allows them to bypass the chamber’s 60-vote filibuster threshold and pass a bill with 51 votes, meaning they are cutting Democrats out of the process. Any bill that goes through this process must affect spending, revenue and the debt limit, though, so Democrats are vowing to comb through these two bills for provisions that may violate this requirement, which is known as the Byrd Rule.

“Now that Republicans have unveiled their bill gifting ICE and Border Patrol nearly $70 billion to continue propping up Trump’s rogue police and wreaking havoc across American communities, Senate Democrats are prepared to review this bill line by line and vigorously challenge any provision that violates the Byrd Rule,” Sen. Jeff Merkley (Ore.), the top Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee, said in a statement.

Trump has given Republicans until June 1 to pass an immigration enforcement funding package, an arbitrary date they are trying to hold to.

Republicans decided to go this route after a partisan standoff over funding for DHS. Until last week, the department had been partially shut down since February, when Democrats refused to provide any new funding for ICE and CBP without tying it to basic accountability measures aimed at curbing abuses by federal agents, like banning them from wearing masks and requiring judicial warrants for searching people’s homes.

Democrats’ demands came amid the Trump administration’s aggressive mass deportation efforts in Minnesota, where thousands of ICE agents spent months traumatizing Minneapolis-area communities, detaining Black and brown people regardless of their citizenship status, and acting so recklessly that they left two Americans dead, Renee Good and Alex Pretti.

Despite all that, Republicans have refused to tie new ICE funding to any new accountability measures, so DHS has been partially unfunded until last week, when Trump signed a law funding most of the department, except for ICE and CBP. Both agencies are already flush with federal funding, thanks to the GOP passing last year’s so-called Big Beautiful Bill. But immigration enforcement is one of Trump’s top priorities, and the GOP is eager to prove it can deliver on his demands that they get still more federal funding.

“Republicans won’t allow our country to be dragged backwards by Democrats’ radical, anti-law enforcement agenda,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in a statement. “The Senate Judiciary Committee is taking action to help provide certainty for federal law enforcement and safer streets for American families. We will work to ensure this critical funding gets signed into law without unnecessary delay.”

Lisa Gilbert, president of Public Citizen, a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization, called it “pathetic” that the GOP is going to such extremes to enrich ICE, and just to please Trump.

“The idea of using a simple majority process to fund billions more in ICE cruelty is abhorrent, but now the Senate has piled corrupt absurdity on top of that inhumane move, by adding in 1 billion dollars to fund the grandiose, bombastic, vanity project — the golden White House ballroom,” Gilbert said in a statement. “Using taxpayer dollars to toady to a wannabe-dictator is both pandering and pathetic.”

By entering your email and clicking Sign Up, you're agreeing to let us send you customized marketing messages about us and our advertising partners. You are also agreeing to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.