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House Republicans grumbling about ‘skinny’ ICE funding package complicates its path

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by Emily Brooks and Sudiksha Kochi - 04/23/26 2:14 PM ET

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by Emily Brooks and Sudiksha Kochi - 04/23/26 2:14 PM ET

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House Republicans grumbling about the structure of a “skinny” reconciliation bill to fund immigration enforcement — and their skepticism about prospects for passing another GOP-only funding package this year — are creating hurdles for Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) as he aims to put the measure on the House floor next week.

“This will probably be the last reconciliation we do before the end of the year. We got the break coming up, and it’s just we got to address — we got to put more to it than just this,” said Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), a member of the House Freedom Caucus.

The Senate in the wee hours of Thursday morning adopted a budget reconciliation framework to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol for three and a half years. It’s part of a two-step process to end the record-long Department of Homeland Security (DHS) shutdown after Republicans were unable to come to an agreement with Democrats, who were seeking reforms to immigration enforcement, to fund the agencies.

Republican leaders resorted to using the special reconciliation process, which bypasses the threat of Democrats blocking the bill in the Senate, to fund those agencies while the Senate also passed a bipartisan bill to fund the rest of DHS.

DHS is warning it will soon run out of the money, which it has been using to pay salaries and perform other critical functions.

But hard-line conservatives in the Freedom Caucus and beyond have long expressed discontent about breaking off ICE and Border Patrol funding from the rest of DHS, and some are not yet sold on voting for the “skinny” package separately.

Rep. Keith Self (R-Texas) said he would not support the framework that passed the Senate overnight as-is, as he would prefer to fund all of DHS together.

The bigger issue, though, could be a lack of confidence among Republicans that leaders will pursue another larger, more comprehensive GOP-only reconciliation bill later this year to advance priorities — like supplemental Pentagon funding, and reforms that aim to address fraud in federal programs.

Republicans had been planning to include those items in a follow-up to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the reconciliation bill that passed last year, but that “reconciliation 2.0” package has been pushed into a “reconciliation 3.0” due to the DHS shutdown off-ramp.

“We ought to be doing more. I think it’s fake news that we’ll get a reconciliation 3.0,” said Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas). “I don’t think you’re going to have the coalition to do that. And if you walk away from something broader right now, you’re walking away from something broader, and I think that’s a mistake.”

Roy said he was not sure if he was on board with the “skinny” ICE and Border Patrol funding bill. Norman also told reporters he doesn’t know whether he plans to support the budget blueprint in the House Rules Committee, which he sits on.

“We’re going to try to put some things in it, other things, or at least have the discussion before we vote on it,” Norman said.

Norman said he’d be open to including defense spending and Iran supplemental funding in a reconciliation bill “if it has offsets with it.”

House Budget Committee Chair Jodey Arrington (R-Texas), who has long pushed for another more substantial reconciliation bill, said that the “skinny” bill will not get the support it needs to pass unless members have confidence they’ll also see a third, broader reconciliation bill come to fruition.

“We’re not there yet,” Arrington said. “We’re poised to receive the Senate’s, but it is contingent on the commitment and momentum on a broader reconciliation.”

Arrington said, though, that Republicans have been “making good progress” on that broader bill. Once people feel that a third “broader reconciliation is viable and has traction and has a commitment from the leadership down and throughout the four corners of our conference, then I think we can push — we can move the skinny Homeland reconciliation bill.”

House Ways and Means Committee Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.) did not explicitly say that he would support the smaller reconciliation bill when asked, but he blamed Democrats for the situation.

“It’s reckless that the Democrats put the American people in this kind of position by refusing to fund our homeland when we’re in a military conflict. So we have to use every tool in the toolbox to make sure that we protect America