Trump calls for Republicans to unify around budget reconciliation push 

United States President Donald Trump has called on Republican lawmakers to push through legislation to fund immigration enforcement through a process known as budget reconciliation.

That procedure would allow them to sidestep opposition from the Democratic Party, which has refused to approve such spending until immigration practices are reformed.

In a social media post on Wednesday, Trump said that conservatives must “unify” behind the reconciliation push to end the current deadlock.

“Senate Majority Leader John Thune, and Senator Lindsey Graham, have taken a critical first step to passing another Reconciliation Bill to fund our Great Border Patrol and ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] Agents,” Trump wrote.

“Republicans must stick together and UNIFY to get this done, and to keep America safe — something which the Democrats don’t care about.”

A partial government shutdown has affected the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) since mid-February, with previous efforts to break the impasse proving unsuccessful.

DHS oversees multiple agencies, including the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

But the opposition has been focused on blocking funding for two agencies in particular: ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

Democrats have refused to support further spending for those agencies without reforms, following the fatal shootings of Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good by federal agents in January, during an immigration crackdown in Minneapolis.

Such reforms would include requirements for immigration agents to clearly identify themselves and avoid racial profiling.

Republicans, however, have rejected those demands. The right-wing party holds a small majority in both the House of Representatives and Senate, and it is now seeking to use budget reconciliation to bypass the Democratic opposition.

Budget reconciliation is a fast-track process wherein Congressional committees are tasked with crafting legislation to meet certain spending targets.

Those bills are then allowed to pass the 100-seat Senate with a simple majority, rather than the 60 votes ordinarily needed to bypass a filibuster, but they must abide by certain limitations.

On Tuesday, in a vote of 52 to 46, the Senate approved a motion to start a budget reconciliation process that paves the way for funding ICE and CBP through budget reconciliation.

Senator Lindsey Graham called the vote a “significant step” in a social media post, adding that the effort would aim to “fully fund Border Patrol and ICE for the rest of the Trump presidency!”

“It’s not my preference,” Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune said on Tuesday. “But it is reality.”

Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called the effort a “partisan sideshow” that would direct money towards immigration enforcement, “without putting any restraints on these rogue agencies’ rampant violence in our streets”.

Budget reconciliation was previously used by Republican lawmakers to pass Trump’s landmark tax and spending package without any Democratic votes last year.