President Donald Trump gave his blessing Friday afternoon for a party-line package focused narrowly on immigration enforcement — in a boost to Senate GOP leaders amid the Department of Homeland Security funding stalemate.

Trump’s comments came after he met Friday with Senate Budget Chair Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso of Wyoming. The two lawmakers went to the White House to pitch Senate GOP leadership’s plan to restrict the party’s filibuster-skirting effort to only funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and parts of Customs and Border Protection.

“Reconciliation is ON TRACK, and we are moving FAST and FOCUSED in keeping our Border SECURE, and getting funding to the Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department to continue our incredible SUCCESS at MAKING AMERICA SAFE AGAIN!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Trump had previously backed using reconciliation to pass funding for immigration enforcement after it became clear Democrats would not agree to reopen those shuttered operations within DHS without a deal for more guardrails on ICE and CBP. But the president’s post Friday, which hammered home the preference for focusing the bill on this issue, is a significant boost to GOP leaders as they face calls from some of their members to broaden the scope of any reconciliation measure.

Some Republicans have called for funding all of DHS through reconciliation. The Senate previously passed a bipartisan deal that would reopen the department except for ICE and Border Patrol, but it has stalled in the House as hard-liners demand the Senate first pass the immigration enforcement funding.

Graham, whom Trump also re-endorsed Friday, is responsible for crafting the budget resolution that will allow the party to begin the reconciliation process — its second time using this maneuver in addition to last year’s tax and spending megabill. He is expected to tap the Judiciary Committee and the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs panel to draft the immigration enforcement measure.

Senate Republicansare expected to not include pay-fors for the funding, arguing that it would have gone through the appropriations process were it not for opposition from Democrats. They’ll need sign-off from their own conservatives and the right-flank in the House for such a plan.

Trump also reiterated Friday that he wants the bill on his desk by June 1, adding that Republicans won’t need Democrats’ votes “as long as Republicans UNIFY, and stick together.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Myah Ward contributed to this report.

Republican infighting is leaving Congress in legislative limbo.

While there are plenty of partisan disputes that have frustrated Capitol Hill — such as the nearly two-month shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security — divisions between House and Senate Republicans have been the more significant obstacle for a laundry list of stalled legislation that could otherwise sail to President Donald Trump’s desk.

Trump could intervene to settle many of these disputes, but he has kept his distance in most cases. That has left each chamber pushing ahead with their own proposals — and against their counterparts in the other chamber.

In the one instance where the president appears truly invested, in passage of a sweeping GOP elections bill, his fixation has only made the intraparty divisions worse.

Lawmakers will return to Washington next week with the pre-midterm legislative calendar dwindling and leaders eyeing action on at least one party-line budget reconciliation bill — a time-consuming process that could make it even tougher to find consensus on these pending items:

Housing affordability

With cost-of-living concerns dominating the pre-midterm political landscape, a bipartisan effort to address housing prices should be a no-brainer, but disputes over niche policy provisions are holding up dueling House and Senate housing packages.

The Senate passed a bill last month that includes a temporary ban on central bank digital currency as well as a provision restricting large investors from owning more than 350 homes. Both provisions face serious opposition from House Republicans, who joined with Democrats in their chamber to pass their own bill in February.

While the Senate wants the House to accept its version, House Financial Services Chair French Hill (R-Ark.) and others in the GOP are pushing for the two chambers to go to conference — potentially adding months to the process.

Aviation safety

Legislation aiming to respond to the deadly crash near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport last year is stuck in a battle of wills among GOP committee chairs. A bill backed by Senate Commerce Chair Ted Cruz (R-Texas) appeared set for Trump’s desk earlier this year until the heads of two key House committees, Armed Services Chair Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) and Transportation and Infrastructure Chair Sam Graves (R-Mo.), came out against it, causing the measure to fail on the House floor.

The Senate bill’s requirement for advanced aircraft location-alerting technology has been one of the biggest points of contention among Republicans, with the House version of the bill opting for more open-ended language. The House bill focuses on a different technology, which major aviation labor groups argue wouldn’t have prevented the Washington disaster.

Cruz has called the House rejection of his ROTOR Act a “temporary delay,” but the House chairs are pushing forward with their own ALERT Act, with a floor vote expected Tuesday. How the policy disputes will be settled from there remains uncertain.

College sports

Trump has taken a keen interest in college athletics, issuing a flurry of executive orders on this topic. But Congress has struggled to act on legislation tackling the controversial “name, image and likeness” regime for compensating student athletes

House Republicans last year made a push for the SCORE Act, which would create new standards for how college athletes are paid and give antitrust exemptions, before opposition from hard-liners and many Democrats put it on ice.

While there has been new chatter about putting it on the floor this month, the bill is dead on arrival in the Senate, where Cruz and Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), the top Commerce Committee senators, have warned the measure doesn’t have enough support. The two are discussing ways to address NIL concerns but have yet to produce a bill.

Tech regulation

The House and Senate have failed to reach consensus on a number of tech-industry flashpoints, including artificial intelligence and children’s online safety.

The House GOP largely wants to codify a Trump executive order creating a national AI rulebook, but some Senate Republicans appear concerned that the president’s plan could limit state-level regulations the White House wants to override.

There’s a similar standoff over online safety bills. The Senate cleared a privacy bill by unanimous consent, but the House hasn’t taken it up and instead is pushing ahead with a package that doesn’t include key Senate-passed provisions.

One of the key differences is on state preemption — included in the House version but not the Senate version. Another dispute is over “duty of care” language in the Senate bill that requires tech companies to design their platforms with an eye toward preventing harm to children. Senate Majority Leader John Thune floated pairing AI legislation with kids online safety legislation in an interview earlier this year.

And then there’s cryptocurrency: A closely watched “market structure” bill is stuck for now in the Senate after it was excluded from a landmark crypto bill signed into law last year despite a push in the House.

The Trump administration is increasing pressure, with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent saying Thursday that “Senate time is precious, and now is the time to act.”

Elections oversight

Conservative lawmakers and Trump have joined forces behind the SAVE America Act — a GOP bill aimed at fully eliminating noncitizen voting — as a top-level, must-pass agenda item even as many Senate Republicans doubt it can ever skirt their chamber’s 60-vote filibuster threshold.

Trump views the bill as his “No. 1 priority,” and House hard-liners are pushing for a filibuster workaround. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) has pushed to force Democrats into a “talking filibuster” where they would have to hold the floor to block the bill, and the Senate will resume debate early next week with no indication of when GOP leaders will choose to hold a likely doomed vote and move on.

Some Republicans, including Senate Budget Chair Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, want to try to pass parts of the bill through the reconciliation process later this fall. But hard-liners view that as a nonstarter because most of the bill likely violates the strict Senate rules governing the party-line reconciliation process.

DHS funding

There’s no bigger dispute for House and Senate Republicans to settle than DHS funding, which has already been subject to nearly a month of back-and-forth.

A Senate-passed bill delivering funding for all of the department save for immigration enforcement agencies is currently held up in the House. Republicans there aren’t enthused about a plan that would instead fund ICE and other agencies through the reconciliation process — an idea Speaker Mike Johnson called “garbage” before flipping in support.

Now, many House Republicans want their Senate counterparts to pass immigration enforcement funding before the House passes the balance of DHS spending. The hard-line Freedom Caucus has gone further, demanding GOP leaders fund all of DHS through reconciliation.

As party leaders make plans to pass a narrowly targeted reconciliation bill ahead of a Trump-imposed June 1 deadline, most Senate Republicans want the House to fund most of DHS now — or risk prolonging the infighting that even one GOP senator called a “circular firing squad.”

Katherine Hapgood, Gabby Miller, Alfred Ng, Nick Niedzwiadek and Sam Ogozalek contributed to this report.

Just a few months ago, President Donald Trump denounced Rand Paul as a “sick wacko” who opposes “everything.” Now the Kentucky senator is a key gatekeeper for one of the president’s biggest priorities.

As chair of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Paul faces a stark choice as his fellow Republicans race to pass a party-line immigration enforcement bill by Trump’s June 1 deadline. At the same time, he’s confronting his own political future.

Paul’s colleagues sidelined him last year when he refused to give as big a cash infusion for border security as the White House wanted. Now he must decide whether to go along as GOP leaders discuss potentially funding parts of DHS for as long as a decade.

It would come as little surprise if Paul raised objections. Known in Washington as a perennial leadership gadfly, he’s repeatedly broken with Trump since January 2025 on everything from tariffs to the ongoing Iran war and last year’s deficit-busting megabill, where he was one of three Senate Republicans who voted no.

Paul is also eyeing a possible presidential run in 2028 as he tries to get the GOP to look past Trump’s dramatic expansion of federal power and illustrate there is still room for libertarian-leaning, small government Republicans like him.

Spokespeople for Paul and the committee he chairs did not respond to a request for an interview. They also did not respond to a question on whether they have gotten any guidance yet on what the Kentucky Republican’s role will be in the immigration enforcement funding push.

Under the filibuster-skirting budget reconciliation process GOP leaders are hoping to employ, Paul’s committee is expected to be asked to hand over legislative language as part of a bill that will deliver tens of billions of dollars to ICE and parts of Customs and Border Protection. Paul has criticized those agencies at times, suggesting they should not get a blank check as they face questions about their use of force.

“This isn’t because I want no ICE,” Paul told reporters earlier this year. “I want people to trust ICE. I want people to trust the immigration authorities and I think they do hard work.”

A senior White House official granted anonymity to speak candidly downplayed any concerns about Paul in the upcoming reconciliation bill, noting he recently backed the administration’s plans for a major White House renovation. The official also questioned whether Paul, who has repeatedly voted to advance a House-passed bill that includes immigration enforcement money, would want to be against DHS funding.

“Rand voted for the ballroom, right?” the official said, referring to Paul’s ex-officio vote on a D.C. planning board.

His colleagues are not as convinced.

“Rand generally votes no,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said in an interview.

Paul’s fellow Republicans likely wouldn’t have voluntarily picked the maverick senator to shape an immigration enforcement bill, but he secured the gavel on the Homeland Security panel last year by dint of seniority.

After spending years warning against an overreaching federal government, Paul raised pointed concerns about some of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement tactics after federal agents shot and killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis in January. He was also the only Republican to oppose Markwayne Mullin’s nomination as Homeland Security secretary, arguing in part he did not have the temperament to run the department.

During a recent CBS News interview, Paul argued more broadly that Congress wasn’t doing enough to check the administration and put the odds at “50-50” that he makes another run for the White House in 2028.

“I’m not going to do it just to do it,” Paul said. “It would be … because we need to have a free-market wing, we need to have a free-trade wing of the party who is not eager for war.”

Paul previously ran for president in 2016 but dropped out shortly after the Iowa caucuses. A bill currently moving through the Kentucky state legislature would allow Paul to run simultaneously for president and reelection to the Senate in 2028 — something he unsuccessfully pursued ahead of his 2016 run.

Trump, for his part, has repeatedly criticized Paul as a frequent roadblock in public remarks and on his Truth Social account — including the November “sick wacko” reference. He took notice this month when Paul agreed to green-light the White House ballroom in a vote of the National Capital Planning Commission. (Paul’s chief of staff attended the meeting and cast the vote on his behalf.)

“I am pleased to announce that even Board Member Senator Rand Paul, known as an extraordinarily difficult vote, voted a strong YES,” Trump said in a Truth Social post.

But it was Paul’s spending-hawk tendencies that got him sidelined by the White House and his GOP colleagues last year as they sought to wrap up the party’s tax-cuts-focused megabill. Senate Budget Chair Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), in coordination with party leaders, effectively discarded Paul’s border security proposal and inserted his own language into the bill.

Paul and Graham had released substantially different proposals for funding under the Homeland Security panel’s jurisdiction. Paul proposed $6.5 billion for building the border wall, while Graham pitched $46.5 billion. Graham proposed $45 billion for ICE detention facilities, roughly twice what Paul proposed.

Graham at the time dismissed Paul’s pitch for a lower funding level as “shallow,” and members of the Homeland Security panel said Paul hadn’t consulted with them.

Paul has said little about how he is thinking about the upcoming GOP immigration enforcement push. He has separately warned that he does not support including funding for the Iran war in a reconciliation bill.

If the bill stays narrowly focused, Paul could have less sway as the bill is tightly negotiated by House and Senate Republican leaders, as well as the White House. The Judiciary Committee, not the committee Paul chairs, drafted a significant swath of the immigration language in last year’s megabill.

GOP colleagues aren’t vowing yet that they will sidestep him as they scramble to meet Trump’s deadline. But they are making clear that the DHS provisions will ultimately be decided by what can get the votes needed to clear the Senate — even if that does not comport with what the libertarian-leaning Kentuckian wants.

A GOP senator granted anonymity to speak candidly predicted Paul would have “influence” as the committee chair, but not a final say.

“Ultimately what it’ll come down to is where there’s 51 votes,” the senator added.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune added in an interview that Paul and other committee chairs tasked with writing the bill would have “input.”

Eli Stokols contributed to this report.