Senator Graham Urges Senate To Prioritize Border Security Bill In Budget Process

South Carolina's Senator Lindsey Graham on Monday agreed with Stephen Miller, the incoming deputy chief of staff for policy under President-elect Donald Trump, saying that a border security bill should be the Senate Budget Committee's top priority.

Graham shared on the social media platform X that Miller was right in suggesting that the Senate and House should use the budget reconciliation process to first pass a border security bill.

"While I support spending restrictions and tax cuts, my top priority – and the first order of business in the Senate Budget Committee – is to secure a broken border. The bill will be transformational, it will be paid for, and it will go first," he said.

This post came after Miller urged congressional Republicans to pass a border funding package that would massively increase border patrol agents, provide resources for military operations, and address Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) needs.

He further said that immigration control and border security have been long standing discussions among Republicans, while highlighting that under Trump, achieving these goals would become a major domestic policy accomplishment.

Graham said, right after the day of the election, that if Republicans retained control of the House, they would quickly focus on using budget reconciliation to boost the economy and strengthen border security.

"The House, we will hit the ground running on budget reconciliation — the best vehicle to jump start the economy and help secure the border," he said, as per The Hill.

Senate budget reconciliation rules allow the majority party, if it controls both the House and Senate, to pass legislation in the Senate with a simple majority. This process avoids the usual requirement of 60 votes needed for more controversial bills.

Earlier this week, the president-elect suggested that families with mixed immigration status, which included U.S. citizen children who chose to stay with their undocumented parents, should be deported together to avoid separating them.

According to the Center for Migration Studies, around 4.7 million households in the U.S. were considered "mixed-status," which meant they included at least one undocumented person and at least one citizen or legal resident.