(Adnkronos) – House Republicans aim today to approve the Budget package, thus ending the shutdown, the second of the new Trump presidency, which began last Saturday. With Democrats having announced they will not vote for the package, Speaker Mike Johnson in this afternoon’s vote can only afford to lose one vote from his very slim majority to see the over $1.2 trillion package approved, which contains funds for the Departments of Defense, State, Treasury, Health, and Education.
From the package, 64 billion for Homeland Security, 10 of which are destined for ICE, have been separated in negotiations between the White House and Senate Democrats who, after the events in Minneapolis, made the limitation of anti-immigrant police action a condition for the approval of funds. The measure approved in the Senate and voted on today in the House still provides for funding for Homeland Security until February 13 to allow time for the difficult negotiations on ICE.
Many Democratic representatives, however, do not agree with the compromise negotiated by the senators, demanding reforms of ICE – including a halt to indiscriminate raids, agents with covered faces, the obligation to use body cams, and the need for warrants to make arrests – before voting on the Budget.
Some Democratic representatives, in fact, fear that Senate negotiators will not be able to obtain substantial measures and would prefer that funds for ICE not be fully allocated, as they recall it already received 75 billion dollars from last year’s spending bill.
Even some ultra-conservative representatives seemed, for diametrically opposed reasons, against the approval of the Budget, including a Florida congresswoman who demanded that a measure be included in the package to require proof of citizenship to vote. But Johnson’s efforts, and also those of the White House, seem to have convinced all “Republicans to do the responsible thing and vote to fund the government,” the Speaker told Nbcnews.
