Freedom Caucus slams Senate DHS deal, complicating path to swift passage

The House Freedom Caucus is expressing strong opposition to a Senate deal to fund the bulk of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), complicating the path for the bill to pass swiftly in the House.

Members of the hard-line conservative caucus said they want a bill that includes a voter ID measure and would fund Border Patrol and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) division that combats child sex trafficking. The lawmakers, however, are not necessarily demanding full ICE funding.

“We can’t believe that the Senate abdicated its responsibility this morning of not funding the child sex trafficking division of ICE, that they don’t didn’t fund the Border Patrol. I guess the Democrats want a wide open border,” Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris (R-Md.) said as the caucus’s members spoke to reporters.

“The only thing we’re going to support is adding that funding into the bill, adding voter ID, sending it back to the Senate, make them come back in and do their work. The bottom line is, this deal is bad for America,” Harris said.

The Senate in the wee hours of Friday morning passed a DHS funding bill that left out funding for ICE and Border Patrol. But to swiftly pass it in the House, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) needs to overcome procedural hurdles, requiring him to either seek unanimous consent to bring the bill up under a fast-track suspension of the rules process or to look to other avenues.

The opposition from the Freedom Caucus shuts the door on the simplest path of getting the legislation on the House floor Friday, with members indicating they would block any unanimous consent request to bring up the bill under suspension of the rules. House rules allow the suspension process only from Monday through Wednesday.

Another path that Republican leaders could pursue is bringing up the bill in the House Rules Committee with a rule that has same-day authority for the legislation, which would require two-thirds of the House to approve. It is not clear if Democrats would provide the votes needed to clear that threshold.

After speaking to the press, Freedom Caucus members met in Johnson’s office Friday morning to discuss the Senate deal.

Emerging from that meeting, Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) said they had “good conversations” but that their position had not changed.

“We’ll see what happens, but we’re not going to move the Senate bill today,” Roy said.

Sudiksha Kochi contributed.

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