As the clock ticks toward the August recess, House Republicans unveiled a $659 million border-crisis emergency package they hope will pass their chamber this week.
But sliding it through the Senate will be another story.
The GOP package marries funding with policy changes Republicans say are necessary to address the influx of unaccompanied minors fleeing violence and economic disparities in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. But the White House, Senate Democrats, and House Republicans have very different visions of the dollar figure needed to curb what has been called a humanitarian crisis at the border.
House Republicans believe $659 million through Sept. 30 will get the job done. The Senate allocated $2.7 billion for the border in a bill last week, which is $1 billion less than President Obama's emergency supplemental request.
The House Republican package's details emerged after a closed-door conference meeting Tuesday morning. The bill will be filed sometime Tuesday, according to House Appropriations Committee Chairman Harold Rogers, meaning that a vote could take place as early as Thursday.
The package is scaled down from the version the conference discussed at its meeting last Wednesday. At that time, Rogers estimated the emergency supplemental funding could be as much as $1.5 billion through the end of the calendar year. That number has now been slashed by more than half because the bill will stipulate that funds must be spent by Sept. 30, which is the end of the fiscal year, according to Rogers.