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First on Fox: Sen. Lindsey Graham is moving forward to fund President Donald Trump’s border security agenda despite objections from major Senate Republicans who want to cut spending in half.
A South Carolina Republican who chairs the Senate Budget Committee has announced plans for the Senate to fund the president’s border guard desires. Billions of dollars are planned to build walls on the tropical border, strengthening immigration and customs enforcement (ice) detention capabilities and hiring other border patrol attacks.
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then-President of Former Donald Trump and Senator Lindsey Graham, Rs.C. (Logan Cyrus/AFP via Getty Images)
But Graham’s decision to advance a $1284 billion bill that funds most of the Senate Homeland Security Committee’s committee’s border security requests comes after Sen. R-ky, chairman of the committee, proposed to cut half of the money burned into the House GOP bill.
Paul’s concerns were that the White House deputy chiefs of staff mobilized for Policy Stephen Miller to hold a closed door meeting with Senate Republicans on Thursday to justify the price tag.
“As Budget Chairman, I believe it has been fully justified, so I will do my best to ensure that the President’s Border Patrol Plan is fully funded,” Graham said in a statement in Fox News Digital. “I salutely oppose Chairman Paul’s proposal to cut the Trump plan by more than 50%.”
“The president has committed to securing our borders,” he continued. “His plan fulfills that promise. The Senate must do our part.”
The Homeland Security Committee makes up a large part of the White House’s $150 billion demand, but not all. The remaining money is expected to come from the Senate Judiciary and Commerce Committee.
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Senator Rand Paul, R-Ky. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Graham’s bill, which closely reflects the House GOP version, includes $46.5 billion in funding to build border walls and additional infrastructure, $4.1 billion to hire more border patrol agents, $2 billion for new agents, $5 billion and $5 billion for compensation of $85 million to improve Border Patrols.
The measures also include $45 billion to strengthen ICE’s detention capabilities, $6 billion to improve border surveillance, $6 billion to the Department of Homeland Security, $6 billion to “ensure adequate funding for national border security,” and $100 billion in grants to reimburse states for Biden’s border security efforts.
Paul, who didn’t attend a meeting with Miller Senate Republicans, said the White House “threw numbers at the wall to see what sticks,” and that breaking down construction costs per mile could drop to around $6.5 billion, like tens of millions of people for building border walls.
He presented his number to the Senate GOP on Wednesday, noting that there was a “half-dozen Senators” who agreed to him.
When asked why Graham and the leader chose to skip him as chairman of the committee to publish the text of the bill, he said, “Because they don’t agree with me.”
“I think Senator Graham’s job is to do what the president says to him, as he sees, and my job is to do what I think is most responsible financially,” he said. “And we have a different agenda.”
Senate Republicans are currently working on a version of House GOP’s “big and beautiful bill.” They are using the budget adjustment process to pass a cleaning bill that promotes Trump’s agenda on taxes, immigration, energy, defense and government bonds. They are also working to use it to reduce national debt close to $37 trillion with the aim of cutting $1.5 trillion in federal spending.
National Debt Tracker: American Taxpayer (you) is on the hook at 36,213,572,785,415.03 as of 6/11/25
Stephen Miller, Deputy Chiefs of Staff of White House Policy (Getty Images)
But anything that comes from the Senate must pass the convocation at home before heading to Trump’s desk.
And the meeting with Miller’s Senate GOP was intended to strengthen support behind the funds detailed in the House bill and answer lingering concerns from the Fiscal Hawks looking to find ways to further reduce spending in the settlement process.
Sen. Markwayne Mullin of R-Okla praised Miller after the meeting, but said, “There are some lawmakers who were upset and some people don’t want to hear.”
“So, Randpole’s solution is to cut everything in half and call it a good,” he said. “That’s not a real budgeting.”
R-Wis. Sen. Ron Johnson of the group said he was “a little bit unhappy” from lawmakers who wanted to see the funding spreadsheet. He dismissed the notion that the meeting was tense, saying, “There is no way to accurately calculate what the administration needs to do to wipe out the “huge mess” left behind by the Biden administration.”
“If anything, we should need more. That’s a huge problem,” Johnson said. “We don’t want to raise the numbers, but we don’t intend to shorten it.”
“This is a mess we have to clean up,” he said. “It’s going to cost a lot, and we want to make sure this administration has the money to wipe out.”
Alex Miller is a writer for Fox News Digital, which covers the US Senate.
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