House Panel Advances $47 Billion Border Wall Proposal

House Homeland Security Committee members advanced a list of budget reconciliation recommendations on April 29, including a proposed $47 billion for border wall construction.

The panel also approved $5 billion for Customs and Border Protection facilities, $6 billion for agency personnel and vehicles, nearly $4 billion for technological enhancements, and $950 million for grant programs.

“It’s critical that the Republican majority do what the people elected us to do: approve the funds for effective border security and enforcement measures. And that’s what these recommendations do,” Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.), the committee’s chairman, said in opening the meeting.

Congress approved a budget blueprint, endorsed by President Donald Trump, earlier this month. Lawmakers are now fine-tuning the details of that plan through the reconciliation process, which allows for the passage of budgetary bills in the Senate with a simple majority vote and without the 60-vote hurdle of a filibuster.

The committee voted 18–14 to report its recommendations to the Budget Committee after shooting down myriad amendments put forward by Democrats to restrict the funds’ use for certain immigration enforcement actions.

Several of those revisions were proposed by Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.), who accused the Trump administration and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem of engaging in “unconstitutional, illegal, and inhumane activities.”

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“The administration says they’re committed to legal immigration, while they are cruelly canceling the appointments of thousands of immigrants who legally start asylum in our country,” Ramirez said. “Trump and Noem have even denied children, 2-year-old children, their basic right to face immigration proceedings with a lawyer, including children going through cancer treatment.”

The congresswoman’s comments followed reports that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers deported three Honduran women recently, who took their young U.S. citizen children with them.

One rejected amendment put forward by Rep. Troy Carter (D-La.) would have prohibited the administration from using the recommended Homeland Security funding to deport U.S. citizens who are minors. Various other proposed changes included provisions barring the funds’ use for deporting people without due process or sending U.S. citizens to foreign prisons.

“I know we don’t agree on everything. But if we can agree on nothing else, can we at least agree on not sending U.S. citizens to rot in foreign prisons?” Rep. Seth Magaziner (D-R.I.) asked after proposing that amendment.

Federal law already prohibits the deportation of U.S. citizens, with rare exceptions.

Democrats dominated most of the seven-hour meeting with their amendments and protestations against the administration’s approach to law enforcement. But when the committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), suggested his Republican colleagues’ silence was a testament to their discomfort with the same, Green spoke up.

“You guys don’t know a good guy from a bad guy!” the chairman said.

Under the previous administration, “13 million people poured into this country because you totally disregarded the rule of law—laws passed by this body,” Green said.

“I think it’s laughable, myself,” he said of the complaints.

Arjun Singh, Jackson Richman, and Joseph Lord contributed to this report.