House advances $1.2T package with ICE funding after Republicans overcome infighting

Republicans voted in dramatic fashion to advance a $1.2 trillion spending package to a final vote on Thursday, overcoming threats of a GOP rebellion over Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) funding and ethanol fuel.

The legislation, which narrowly passed after a prolonged standoff on the floor, clears a key procedural hurdle called a “rule vote.” Rule votes, which traditionally fall along party lines, allow for debate and final consideration of select pieces of legislation. The rule was adopted by just one vote in a 214-213 result.

The vote tees up two final House votes on spending legislation in FY 2026.

One would fund the departments of War, Education, Labor and Health and Human Services. A second one would fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which also includes funding for ICE.

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Divisions still linger over ethanol fuel and ICE funding, but both bills are expected to pass with bipartisan support — though few Democrats are expected to vote in favor of the DHS portion.

“Bipartisan, bicameral negotiations are complex and take time. As with our previous packages, the outcome reflects the reality of serious governing, shared contributions and shared compromise,” Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said.

“I always say, we never start in the same place, but we quite often end in the same place,” Cole said, referring to negotiations with the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn.

If passed, the two separate spending packages will later be joined together for consideration in the Senate.

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It follows dramatic scenes in the House where Midwestern Republicans threatened to sink the rule vote if the spending bills did not include a provision allowing for year-round sales of ethanol fuel called E15.

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., led negotiations into the early hours of Thursday morning that resulted in the rule’s adoption, also establishing an “E15 Rural Domestic Energy Council” that will look to balance energy priorities between Republicans in states producing ethanol fuel and others leading in oil and gas production.

The council is expected to be co-chaired by Reps. Stephanie Bice, R-Okla., and Randy Feenstra, R-Iowa, Fox News Digital was told. The group is required to submit recommendations for legislation to Congress no later than Feb. 25, 2026.

The inclusion of the E15 council was tacked on overnight Wednesday to defuse as many as 20 lawmakers who threatened to vote against the package without the removal of current E15 sale restrictions. Under the current Clean Air Act, E15 sales are limited due to regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Another part of the compromise appears to be the House Rules Committee, the final gatekeeper before most legislation sees a chamber-wide vote, setting up an emergency meeting to consider a bill to allow for year-round E15 sales. That bill would likely fail in the current political environment, however.

In the lead-up to the rule vote Thursday, Republicans also raised concerns about new requirements for ICE included in the DHS bill.

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Safeguards Democrats demanded will require ICE agents to wear body cameras and undergo additional training on how to interact with the public. The DHS bill also keeps funding levels largely flat over FY 2025 levels and even reduces some of the allocations for ICE’s removal activities.

But a large contingent of Democrats have also made it clear they won’t support the DHS bill, claiming that the legislation doesn’t do enough to rein in ICE’s operations after Renee Nicole Good was killed in a fatal confrontation with ICE agents in Minnesota earlier this month.

Ahead of the rule vote, House lawmakers voted unanimously to approve an amendment to the larger spending package that looks to strike data-security language in previously passed spending legislation. The provision the House wants repealed gives senators the power to retroactively sue the government for scraping their cell phone data as a part of the Arctic Frost investigation — a DOJ probe into whether President Donald Trump tried to overturn the 2020 election. Each violation could award senators $500,000. The provision caused backlash in the House when it was passed last November, as it only applied to senators.

By including it in the spending package, the House has effectively stuck the Senate with a repeal of the Arctic Frost provision.

It’s unclear how many Democrats, if any, will vote in support of the spending bills themselves once they hit the floor. Having cleared the rule vote, the bills are scheduled for consideration later Thursday.