House rep eyes border ‘safety net’ fund as DHS urges Congress for more money
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FIRST ON FOX: A new House GOP bill would create a “safety net” of federal funds for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to help in emergency situations.
Rep. Michael Rulli, R-Ohio, told Fox News Digital he’s introducing a bill to create a Border Enforcement Trust Fund using federal revenues from excise taxes on gambling.
The legislation would reroute roughly $300 million per year that’s currently going into the U.S. Treasury’s general fund through taxes on gambling operations.
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He said it would be of use to the Trump administration in situations like it has faced this week, with federal authorities facing off against anti-immigration enforcement rioters in Los Angeles.
“In the last 48 hours, we’ve seen this summer of hate, which we saw several years ago, happening again in Los Angeles, where you have complete anarchy and the burning down of the city itself,” Rulli told Fox News Digital in an interview.
He argued it could also meet emergency needs for immigration authorities while Congress weighs President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill,” which includes billions for ICE that the Department of Homeland Security said are sorely needed.
“It’d be a shame to take all that money and put it in the general fund, and it would just be lost when we could use it just for our border [needs], which we all saw in this last election is the No. 1 issue in the country,” Rulli said.
The bill would have long odds of succeeding in the Senate, where at least several Democrats would be needed to reach the upper chamber’s 60-vote threshold.
It’s not likely that Democrats would want to give Trump that kind of power over emergency funding.
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Rulli said he has not encountered any significant opposition among his House colleagues, however.
The bill is one of several introduced by House Republicans this week after the riots in Los Angeles and wider anti-ICE protests around the country.