The House of Representatives on Tuesday narrowly passed a $70 billion legislative package to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

The bill passed in a 214-212 vote, moving to President Trump’s desk.

CNBC explained further:

Its passage ends a monthslong stalemate over immigration enforcement that has shut down parts of the Department of Homeland Security.

Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., chair of the House Democratic Caucus, called the package a ”$70 billion blank check for ICE and border patrol, with no strings attached.”

“This comes after Republicans already cut healthcare, food assistance, and they’ve a already give ICE $140 billion in their Big Ugly Bill,” Aguilar said at a press conference on Tuesday, referring to Republicans’ 2025 tax and spending package more commonly known as the One Big Beautiful Bill. “On top of that, this doesn’t do a single thing to help Americans with their daily costs of living.”

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All Democrats opposed the measure.

“I applaud my House Republican colleagues for their swift passage of the Secure America Act. Despite Democrat efforts to shut down ICE and Border Patrol, Republicans have now fully funded these agencies through President Trump’s entire second term to the tune of nearly $70 billion,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) commented.

“Thanks to President Trump, our border has gone from its weakest point to its most secure point in less than two years. This bill fulfills the mandate given to us by the American people and ensures we won’t go back to the failed immigration policies of the Biden Administration,” he added.

“We were sent here by the American people who gave President Trump an overwhelming victory,” Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-TX) said, according to The New York Times.

“Every swing state, the popular vote, the electoral vote, gave us unified Republican leadership in Congress. The No. 1 reason they did that was to restore the rule of law and to put the American people’s safety and security first. And that’s exactly what we’re doing today,” he added.

More from The New York Times:

Republicans pushed the $70 billion legislation through Congress using a process known as reconciliation, created to allow the majority party to dodge a filibuster and pass bills aimed at tackling federal deficits on a simple majority vote. In doing so, they effectively gave up on the normal, bipartisan appropriations process that has always been used to fund major government agencies.

The circuitous dispute over funding for immigration enforcement began in February, when federal agents in Minneapolis shot and killed the two American citizens during Mr. Trump’s immigration sweeps, and Democrats demanded guardrails to rein in the officers’ tactics and conduct.

Mr. Trump and Republicans refused to yield to a number of Democrats’s demands, including barring immigration officers from wearing masks and requiring them to obtain warrants for searches. Unable to reach a bipartisan agreement to allow a regular spending bill to move forward, Senate Republicans and Democrats struck a deal to fund everything except for the immigration enforcement agencies.

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Even then, the deal languished for weeks because conservatives in the House refused to vote for a regular spending bill that did not fund ICE and border patrol. House Republicans passed it only after the White House ordered them to do so.

In the interim, Mr. Trump said he was funding both agencies with money approved by Republicans tucked into the tax law enacted last year, which also passed using reconciliation.

Their use of a process meant to make it easier to do the politically risky work of enacting major budgetary policy to steer around normal appropriations has raised the specter of the maneuver becoming routine whenever lawmakers are unable to come to a consensus on spending.

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