House Breaks Impasse Over SAVE America Act

The House of Representatives passed a FY2027 spending bill on Wednesday to fund the Department of State and related agencies, breaking a weeks-long impasse with House conservatives that began prior to the Fourth of July recess. The legislation incorporates the SAVE America Act (H.R. 7296), which would mandate documentary proof of citizenship for voter registration and require voters to present valid photo identification.

The vote occurred just a day before Pres. Trump's primetime address on foreign threats to U.S. elections and illegal voting. While Trump continues to pressure Congress to pass the SAVE America Act, the Senate has repeatedly failed to pass the standalone bill. Without Senate Republicans committing to a talking filibuster, the bill has simply failed to reach the 60-vote cloture threshold.

It is unlikely that the Senate will take up this spending bill, but if they did, there likely would be a vote on an amendment to strip out the SAVE America Act.

Meanwhile, House Republicans have unveiled an outline for a third budget reconciliation bill that would require only a simple 51-vote majority to pass the Senate. The proposed outline includes $10 billion that presumably will be used to provide grants to states that implement voter ID and proof of citizenship to register to vote.

MDC Gala Rallies Support for Mass Deportations

The Immigration Accountability Project participated on Thursday night in a gala hosted by the Mass Deportation Coalition. The event gathered current and former leaders advocating for mass deportations, rallying support for policies aimed at helping the Trump administration achieve at least one million deportations in 2026.

Former Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo

Former Iowa Rep. Steve King

IAP hosted former Congressmen and immigration policy pioneers Tom Tancredo and Steve King for the event. They addressed state leaders earlier in the day, and then spoke at the gala. 

Tancredo, who served five terms in the House, famously centered his 2008 Republican presidential primary campaign around strict immigration enforcement. Rep. King, a nine-term House Member, was a key figure in defeating the "Gang of Eight" mass amnesty bill in 2013.

Sen. Banks Retakes Top Spot in Senate Immigration Rankings

Sen. Jim Banks (R-IN) has reclaimed the top spot on IAP Action's Immigration Rankings after cosponsoring the Mandatory E-Verify Act (S. 4620). The bill, which requires all employers to use the E-Verify system, is designated as Key Legislation supported by IAP Action. Senator Banks also cosponsored the BACK OFF Act (S. 4501), which designates "birth tourism" as grounds for inadmissibility or deportation, and the Detention Authority Clarification Act (S. 4593), which mandates the strict detention of illegal aliens without bond by closing legal loopholes occasionally used by federal judges to grant release.

Sen. Banks has held the top spot for most of the current Congress, but lost it just a few weeks ago to Sen. Ted Budd (R-NC).

Additionally, Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE) climbed the leaderboard to rank No. 21 overall in the Senate after cosponsoring the Birthright Citizenship Act (S. 304). The bill, which was introduced by the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and restricts automatic U.S. citizenship for children born on U.S. soil, is rated as Key Legislation supported by IAP Action.

On the House side, Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-TN) dropped 32 spots to No. 164 after cosponsoring the Securing Agriculture's Workforce Act (H.R. 9535). Rated as Key Legislation opposed by IAP Action, the bill would grant amnesty to hundreds of thousands of illegal agricultural workers and employers of illegal aliens.

View the full Congressional Immigration Rankings at IAPAction.com.

Immigration Articles

CBS: DHS could weigh immigrants' use of Medicaid, food and housing help in green card decisions

The Trump Administration is restoring the fundamental principle of self-reliance and protecting American taxpayers by expanding the public charge test to ensure that immigration officers weigh an immigrant's dependence on non-cash welfare benefits, such as Medicaid, food stamps, and housing assistance, when making green card determinations.

Fox News: More than a quarter-million noncitizens may be registered to vote in 4 key states, DHS alleges

The Department of Homeland Security is moving to safeguard election integrity after a DHS preliminary review flagged more than 256,000 non-citizens potentially registered to vote across four key states. Secretary Markwayne Mullin is pressuring state election officials to immediately cooperate on identity verification to ensure ineligible individuals are purged from the rolls and American voters are not disenfranchised.

The Federalist: After Birthplace Citizenship Case, The Conservative Legal Movement Needs To Raise Its Standards

Our friend Rachel Bovard, from the Conservative Partnership Institute, argues that following the Supreme Court's disastrous 5-4 ruling in the Trump v. Barbara decision, which rewards birth tourism by unconstitutionally granting automatic citizenship to the children of illegal aliens, the conservative legal movement must urgently raise its standards. Conservative decision-makers must abandon narrow, hyper-literal textualism and demand a new judicial realism that firmly prioritizes national sovereignty, secure borders, and the fundamental value of American citizenship.

Next Week

The House and Senate will be in next week, and the House Judiciary Committee will have its markup of the Permanent Trump Secure Border Act, the new version of H.R. 2 from the previous Congress.