WASHINGTON — The House on Wednesday narrowly adopted a Republican budget blueprint that would allow the GOP to blow past Democratic opposition and pour an additional $70 billion into immigration enforcement through the remainder of President Donald Trump’s second term.

The measure is a crucial step in Republicans’ plan to reopen the Department of Homeland Security, ending a shutdown that has lasted for nearly 11 weeks.

Republicans pushed through the plan, which the Senate adopted last week, on a party-line vote of 215-211, with one independent lawmaker voting “present.” That set the stage for the GOP to begin working on a special budget measure, shielded from a filibuster in the Senate, to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, the two agencies charged with carrying out the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

“This is the moment we take the keys, and we say, no more of this nonsense,” said Rep. Jodey C. Arrington, R-Texas, chair of the Budget Committee. “And we open up the people’s government and we restore the safety and security of the American people.”

The budget plan — which stalled in the House for more than five hours as Republicans fought among themselves over measures on agriculture and ethanol that had nothing to do with immigration — was part of the two-track strategy that Republicans agreed to earlier this month to reopen the Department of Homeland Security, whose funding lapsed on Feb. 14.

Democrats had refused to fund the department without new restrictions on federal immigration agents’ conduct, and Republicans had refused to agree to any. Then last month, Senate Republicans struck a deal with Democrats to allow the spending measure for the Department of Homeland Security to pass with no funding for or restrictions on immigration enforcement. The GOP would then seek to fund ICE and CBP through a process known as reconciliation, which exempts certain budget bills from a filibuster and allows them to pass the Senate on a simple-majority vote.

Approval of the budget plan was a crucial first step for Republicans to begin the reconciliation process, which will deprive Democrats of the ability to block the bill funding ICE and CBP President Donald Trump has directed Congress to pass that measure by June 1.

The spending bill to fund the rest of the department, which has passed the Senate twice without objection, has remained stalled in the House, where Speaker Mike Johnson has yet to bring it to the floor, even as the White House has urged swift passage.

Several rank-and-file House Republicans said they would not vote for the spending bill without seeing progress on the bill funding immigration enforcement. It was not clear whether adoption of the budget blueprint would be enough to sway them.

The budget resolution would allow the two Senate committees that oversee immigration enforcement agencies to write legislation that increases government spending by up to $70 billion each. Republican leaders have said that they expect the total spending amount to be closer to $70 billion in total.

Democrats attacked Republicans for giving more money to immigration agencies that already received a large fund as part of Trump’s signature domestic policy bill. They argued that such money would be better utilized to address Americans’ concerns over affordability and health care.

“Republicans refuse to address the rising costs that Americans are dealing with because this administration refuses to put the people first,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash. “Americans of every political stripe do not want more money to go to ICE’s slush fund.”

Some rank-and-file Republicans had been concerned about such attacks, and they sought to expand the scope of the budget bill to include priorities that they argued would be felt more directly by most Americans.

But the White House and congressional Republican leaders rebuffed those efforts, worried that adding other priorities to the bill would slow its passage and could prolong a record shutdown.

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Michael Gold/Jamie Kelter Davis
c. 2026 The New York Times Company