The Senate and House are expected to take up competing bills this week to provide $4.5 billion in emergency funding to help alleviate the massive humanitarian crisis on our southwest border. The Senate bill, as it's currently crafted, corresponds more closely with the Trump administration's request for funding. The House bill contains numerous "oversight" restrictions and major differences in allocations, as reported by TheHill.com:

"The House and Senate bills both provide the administration with more than $4.5 billion, including new money to help shore up a Health and Human Services (HHS) unaccompanied children program set to run out of money. But they split over the details, including money for the Pentagon, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP)."

The House bill does not include any Defense Department funding. It also doesn’t include $61 million to address a pay shortfall or $3.7 million in overtime costs for ICE. It also includes myriad restrictions on how funds can and cannot be used, and reinstates hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras after the administration slashed funding last week."

+ + Congressional clash ahead

If both chambers of Congress pass their respective bills, a contentious reconciliation process is expected. House Democrats are unlikely to yield to the Senate's version of the bill because they refuse to give President Trump any resemblance of victory when it comes to the administration's policies on border security and immigration enforcement. A circulated Democrat memo cited "concerns" over the Senate bill. 

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has accused House Democrats of Trump Derangement Syndrome in their unwillingness to work with the GOP-controlled Senate because of opposition to Trump.

"The Democratic House of Representatives has been more interested in denying this White House whatever it asked for, however necessary it might be, simply because it was this White House that was asking for it”

The House measure with its stringent oversight demands is expected to pass on a floor vote as early as Tuesday. The Senate is expected to vote midweek. That's why Grassfire is calling for our friends to take action before the Senate vote.