Trump signs $70 billion Secure America Act to fund ICE, Border Patrol

The act, dubbed “The Secure America Act,” was passed mostly along party lines in a 214-212 vote. The Senate approved the measure last week, which allocates $38 billion to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), $26 billion to Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and $5 billion more to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

During the signing, Trump said the act will give ICE and Border Patrol what they need to "keep America safe" and defend the nation's borders.

https://twitter.com/RapidResponse47/status/2064730097479811395?s=20

This vote moves to protect funding for DHS, which has been at the center of recent government shutdowns, with Democrats successfully blocking funding for the department from mid-February to the end of April if demanded reforms for ICE and Border Patrol were not made. Trump ended the blockade by signing a standalone bill for the DHS that did not include funding for Border Patrol or ICE.

The passage of the legislation is a win for House Speaker Mike Johnson, who has had the difficult task of corralling a minuscule majority to pass legislation. “All that Democrats have achieved by their shutdown is a useful reminder to the American people of their support for open borders and keeping criminal illegal immigrants in American communities, policies that have been soundly rejected by the American people over and over again,” the speaker said. “We hope this episode serves as a future reminder to Democrats that when they shut the government down, they will receive less than nothing in return.”

Democrats criticized the passage of the act, which fully funds ICE without any of the reforms the party has demanded since the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.

Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has been a consistent critic of Trump's immigration tactics and has railed against the legislation. “Republicans have now come back for more, to give ICE and Donald Trump’s violent mass deportation machine another $70 billion blank check, with no oversight, no accountability and no guardrails,” Jeffries said.

https://twitter.com/RepJeffries/status/2064459078315671823

While the funding passed mostly along party lines, Chip Roy, R-Texas, and Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., were among the group of GOP lawmakers who initially withheld their support during an earlier test vote, arguing that it did not contain sufficient reforms that would codify some of the president's executive orders into law, per Fox News.

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