Senate Republicans will need to rewrite portions of their $72 billion immigration-enforcement funding package to preserve its filibuster-proof status.
The Senate parliamentarian advised that parts of the bill as written do not comply with the chamber’s budget reconciliation rules and would have to clear a 60-vote threshold procedural vote to remain in the bill.
Senate Republicans have already started working on revised language.
A source familiar with the parliamentarian’s ruling said “very minor tweaks” are needed to bring the language into compliance with the rules.
Democrats, nonetheless, celebrated the initial victory in what is referred to as the “Byrd bath” review.
“Democrats promised to fight this bill tooth and nail, and on day one, we forced Republicans back on their heels,” said Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat. “They’re already scrambling to rewrite key pieces of their plan.”
The nonpartisan Senate parliamentarian determines whether the legislative text complies with the Byrd rule, named after former West Virginia Sen. Robert Byrd.
The Byrd rule prevents senators from using the filibuster-proof budget reconciliation process to add “extraneous” provisions outside of its intended scope to adjust federal spending and revenues.
It prevents policy changes that have no direct budgetary effect or fall outside of the jurisdiction of the committees given instructions in the budget resolution that tees up the process.
The latter was one of the objections the parliamentarian raised in her review of the Senate Homeland Security panel’s portion of the package.
The parliamentarian said that sections providing a total of roughly $23 billion in appropriations to U.S. Customs and Border Protection provide funding for activities that fall outside of the committee’s jurisdiction.
The parliamentarian also said that a provision allowing CBP to use the funding for initial screenings of unaccompanied alien children undermines decades-old legal protections for noncitizen children, as evidenced by the Trump Administration’s implementation of similar funding Republicans provided in the One Big Beautiful Bill.
“While we expect Republicans to continue to do anything Trump asks, this is a win for the rule of law and to ensure children in immigration detention are protected by existing laws,” said Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon, the top Democrat on the Budget Committee.
Mr. Merkley, who is leading his party’s pushback to the bill in the Byrd bath, said Democrats will continue to scrutinize every line of the bill as the rules review continues.
The parliamentarian is expected to review the Senate Judiciary Committee’s portion of the bill on Friday.
That section includes $1 billion in funding for the Secret Service to step up security at the White House and large national events.
Democrats are planning to challenge that funding, some of which is intended to pay for security upgrades to the 1,000-seat ballroom President Trump is building in the east wing of the White House.
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