House Homeland Security Committee advances reconciliation text that funnels billions to border projects amid sharp debate over deportations and due process

The House Committee on Homeland Security met in markup session to consider Committee Print 119A, a reconciliation text tied to H. Con. Res. 14, the concurrent budget resolution for fiscal 2025. Committee leaders debated a package that Republican members described as a $69 billion infusion into homeland security — including roughly $46.5 billion for a border barrier and related infrastructure — while Democrats repeatedly warned the measure funds an administration they say is violating due process and will be paid for with cuts to Medicaid and other programs.

The committee’s chair opened the hearing by reading the committee’s assignment and offering an amendment in the nature of a substitute from the Committee on Homeland Security. “This package empowers us to finish construction of new, strategically placed border barrier system,” the chairman said while explaining the substitute. Ranking members and Democrats countered that the reconciliation text is a vehicle to finance tax and spending priorities that would cut domestic programs and enable what they called aggressive immigration enforcement under the current administration. The ranking member called the proposal “a big, beautiful bill for [billionaires] and a terrible deal for everyone else.”

Why it matters: Committee Print 119A is part of the House Republican reconciliation process under H. Con. Res. 14 and would authorize large new sums to DHS programs. Members repeatedly framed the markup as consequential for border policy, homeland security operations, and oversight of the department’s use of enforcement powers. Much of the debate focused on whether the bill should include specific statutory protections limiting DHS actions — particularly the agency’s use of removal authority and its transfers of detainees to facilities outside the United States.

What members debated and the record of votes The markup included an amendment in the nature of a substitute offered by Representative Green (Tenn.) that was opened to amendment. Committee members offered and debated numerous amendments to the substitute. Democrats repeatedly pressed for restrictions on DHS use of funds to remove U.S. citizens or to…