Senate Republicans plan to release their budget resolution and take a procedural vote as early as Tuesday, kicking off the cumbersome process for a reconciliation bill designed to help end the partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R.S.D., said Monday he hopes to confine the bill to the narrow mission of funding Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol. 

The party is aiming to provide about $70 billion in funding to sustain the immigration agencies for at least the next three years, without placing any new guardrails on federal immigration agents sought by Democrats. The budget resolution would contain instructions to the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and Judiciary panels, which would be charged with writing the details of the upcoming reconciliation bill.

“When you start adding other committee jurisdictions, everything gets harder,” Thune said.

Passage of immigration funding through a reconciliation bill could pave the way for the House to clear a Senate-passed bill to fund the rest of the Department of Homeland Security, thereby ending a record-breaking partial shutdown that has persisted for more than two months.

But with Democrats staunchly opposed to more immigration funding without restraints, Republicans in both chambers will need to stay unified to pass the measure on their own with razor-thin majorities.

Senate Budget Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., is writing the budget resolution and plans to meet with other Budget Committee Republicans Tuesday morning. Graham has said he would limit his budget resolution to immigration funding, while deferring other priorities, such as defense and anti-fraud measures, to a subsequent reconciliation bill later in the year.

Push for expansion

But some GOP senators, including Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and John Kennedy, R-La., who are skeptical of the chances for passing two reconciliation bills this year, are pushing to add other provisions to the current measure to provide economic relief ahead of the midterm elections.

Cruz, for example, wants to add a tax provision to index capital gains to inflation.

“I’m certainly not opposed to that,” Thune said of the proposal in general. But as far as putting it in the reconciliation bill, he said, “We’d have to know that we have the votes to get it done.” He noted that including the tax measure would require expanding reconciliation instructions to the Senate Finance Committee, “which brings into play not only that but lots of other tax policies and health care policies that could get considered on the floor too.”

“The exercise here is to make sure we have something that gets 50 [votes] here and 218 [votes] in the House, that is narrow and focused on ensuring that the ICE and CBP are funded well into the future,” he said.

Nevertheless, Thune said there is a chance that other provisions aimed at the economy could be added if there is enough support. “If there are good ideas out there and we think they are the kinds of proposals that can ensure that we have the votes necessary to get the basic things that we need to get done with this bill done, then I’m open to hearing about it,” he said. “But right now, the goal is to ensure that those DHS agencies are funded.”

Thune said he anticipates Republicans will yield back some of their allotted 25 hours of debate time, somewhat accelerating the path to the start of unlimited amendment votes known as a vote-a-rama. He said he expects Democrats will use all of their 25 hours.

If a motion to proceed to the budget resolution is approved Tuesday, the vote-a-rama could begin Wednesday night, though timing remains fluid.

Thune said he can’t guarantee the Senate could pass an additional reconciliation bill — after the current one being planned — that is sought by some in the GOP. It will “come down to where the votes are,” he said.

Thune said GOP leaders will be watching the vote count on the budget resolution in case Vice President JD Vance is needed to break a tie. Vance was expected to fly to Islamabad, Pakistan, Tuesday for further talks on the Iran war.