Senate Budget Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Friday unveiled a 61-page budget resolution that would lay the groundwork for the Senate to pass a special budget reconciliation bill that would provide $175 billion to secure the southern border and $150 billion to beef up national defense.
“To those who voted for and support real border security and a stronger defense in a troubled world, help is on the way,” Graham said in a statement.
“This budget resolution jumpstarts a process that will give President Trump’s team the money they need to secure the border and deport criminals, and make American strong and more energy independent,” he said.
If the Senate and House adopt the resolution, which Graham plans to mark up on Wednesday morning, it would allow Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) to bring a reconciliation package to the Senate floor focused on border security, energy reform and defense spending that would be immune from a Democratic filibuster.
It could pass with a simple-majority vote instead of needing 60 votes, as most Senate bills require, to advance to a final vote.
The legislation would increase annual spending by $85.5 billion and be fully paid for by $85.5 billion in budgetary offsets.
Graham did not reveal what spending cuts would be used to pay for the proposal, leaving it for Republican leaders and committee chairman to decide at a later date.
The proposal calls for finishing the wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and upgrading technology for ground and aerial support to secure the border.
It also calls for increasing the number of detention beds to hold migrants arrested in the United States and to increase the number of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to “conduct mass detention and removal of criminal illegal aliens,” according to a summary provided by Graham’s office.
Funding would go toward increasing the number of Border Patrol agents to “regain operational control of the border” and assistant U.S. attorneys to prosecute violent crime, organized crime and immigration-related offenses. It would also fund additional immigration judges to clear the backlogs in immigration courts.
The budget calls for making investments in state and local law enforcement to cooperate with federal law enforcement in removing migrants.
The budget legislation includes a $175 billion instruction to both the Senate Homeland Security Committee and the Senate Judiciary Committee, which share jurisdiction over the border, to craft the legislation.
It provides a $150 billion reconciliation instruction to the Senate Armed Services Committee to increase defense spending.
And it provides a $20 billion reconciliation instruction to the Transportation Committee.
Senate Republican sources familiar with the legislation say the instructions would cover a $17 billion increase in funding for the U.S. Coast Guard.
