{"id":22969,"date":"2026-05-19T15:17:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T15:17:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/senate-panel-advances-part-of-gops-immigration-enforcement-bill\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T15:17:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T15:17:18","slug":"senate-panel-advances-part-of-gops-immigration-enforcement-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/senate-panel-advances-part-of-gops-immigration-enforcement-bill\/","title":{"rendered":"Senate panel advances part of GOP\u2019s immigration enforcement bill"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Senate Republicans advanced part of their immigration enforcement bill Tuesday as they aim to get the package to President Donald Trump\u2019s desk in a matter of days.<\/p>\n

The party-line vote of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee followed several unsuccessful attempts by panel Democrats to add new restrictions on the administration\u2019s immigration enforcement operations. That included amendments to require judicial warrants for searches and apprehensions and to keep federal agents out of polling places, among others.<\/p>\n

Democrats also sought without avail to address issues not included in the committee\u2019s portion of the bill \u2014 including funding the administration has requested<\/a> for security measures for Trump\u2019s proposed White House ballroom.<\/p>\n

The effort by Democrats to attach the new law enforcement rules comes after bipartisan negotiations on that topic fell apart earlier this year, leading to a record 76-day shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are doing this whole irresponsible and hyper-partisan spending exercise because the Republican majority does not want to pass common sense reforms,\u201d Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), the top Democrat on the Homeland Security panel.<\/p>\n

Panel Chair Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who said earlier this year he was open to new immigration enforcement rules, warned that amendments from Democrats would \u201ckill the bill\u201d because they had not been litigated by the parliamentarian to ensure they fit within the strict rules governing the filibuster-skirting budget reconciliation process.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have no one to blame but themselves,\u201d Paul said of his Democratic colleagues. \u201cWhile there could have been a discussion over reforms and bipartisan compromise on this, it didn\u2019t happen because the Democratic base decided they weren’t going to fund ICE.\u201d<\/p>\n

The committee vote comes as Republicans are still trying to lock down the votes for their bill because of concerns \u2014 and, in some cases, outright opposition<\/a> \u2014 from some members to the $1 billion Secret Service line item that could go toward parts of the White House ballroom.<\/p>\n

Peters criticized the Secret Service security funding arguing that it showed the \u201cfecklessness\u201d of Republicans in the face of Trump\u2019s demands.<\/p>\n

\u201cClearly he lied \u2014 he said it would never be built with taxpayer monies,\u201d Peters said of Trump. \u201cIt\u2019s time to stand up to the president\u2019s ridiculous demands.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paul, who has been critical of using taxpayer funding toward the project, noted that the security language is not included in the Homeland Security panel\u2019s portion of the bill.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Senate Republicans advanced part of their immigration enforcement bill Tuesday as they aim to get the package to President Donald Trump\u2019s desk in a matter of days. The party-line vote of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee followed several unsuccessful attempts by panel Democrats to add new restrictions on the administration\u2019s immigration enforcement operations. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22969\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}