[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 70 (Tuesday, April 21, 2026)]
[Senate]
[Page S1850]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             RECONCILIATION

  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, in a moment here, I am going to move to 
proceed to a budget resolution, but let me just say before I do that 
that we are in this spot because we tried to appropriate. We tried to 
fund the DHS Agencies ICE and CBP through the regular order, normal 
appropriations process--a process which had concluded in a bipartisan 
deal with Democrats and Republicans both having agreed to fund DHS, an 
outcome that was walked away from by the Senate Democrats.
  Then, because they wanted reforms, we sat down for 45 days, I think 
it was, and went through a process where Democrats kept coming up with 
new ideas. The White House kept meeting them. There were a number of 
reforms that were made by the White House.
  Then, subsequent to that, in the negotiation with the Democrats, 
Republicans here in the Senate and in the House and the White House 
worked together to try to accommodate more requests for reforms--all of 
which were met with a resounding no from the Democrats, so much so at 
one point that there was one offer made by the White House, and the 
Democrats didn't even respond for 18 days. Eighteen days suggests a 
lack of seriousness about this issue.
  Ultimately, I think what has happened here is the far-left Democrat 
base in this country has insisted that their leadership not fund the 
Agencies that are responsible for law enforcement in this country, 
whether that is the Border Patrol, which has responsibility for 
ensuring that our border is secure, or ICE, which is responsible for 
ensuring that illegals who commit criminal acts in this country are 
deported. Enforcing the laws of this land--that is the job these two 
Agencies have been charged with, and the Democrats have determined they 
are not going to fund them.
  So essentially, when the Democrat leader talks about Republicans 
owning something, I will tell you what the Democrats own. The Democrats 
own the position which they have tried before and failed, and that is 
open borders, wide-open borders, millions of people coming into this 
country illegally over the past four years, and defunding the police.
  Open borders and defunding the police--that is what the Democrats 
own. Because of that and their unwillingness to work with us on an 
appropriations process that provides reforms and funding for those two 
Agencies, Republicans have been forced to use the budget reconciliation 
process to ensure that those two Agencies are funded not only for today 
but in the future because I don't see a universe in which the far-left 
Democrat base is ever going to let their leaders fund these Agencies 
that are responsible for law enforcement in this country.
  This is defund-the-police. That is simply what it is. So we are going 
to move to budget reconciliation to ensure that those two Agencies are 
funded not only for today but for the balance of this administration's 
term in office.

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