President Donald Trump said on March 22 that Congress should not pass a measure to fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) until Democrats help support a bill that requires people registering to vote to provide proof of U.S. citizenship.
In an evening post on Truth Social, the president said that Republicans in Congress should not make “any deal” with Democrats over funding DHS until the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, also called the SAVE America Act, is passed with Democratic support. DHS has remained unfunded since Feb. 13, leading to some Transportation Security Administration shortfalls at major U.S. airports.
The passage of the SAVE America Act, Trump wrote on social media, is “far more important than anything else” on the Senate’s agenda, including funding for DHS. Earlier this month, Trump said he wouldn’t sign any other measure passed until Congress approves the voting bill.
The measure should also include “their approval of Voter I.D., (with picture!), Citizenship to Vote, No Mail-In Voting (with exceptions), All Paper Ballots, No Men In Women’s Sports, and No Transgender MUTILIZATION of our precious children,” Trump wrote.
The bill currently lacks the 60 votes needed to overcome Democratic opposition in the 100-member Senate, where Republicans hold 53 seats. Meanwhile, the GOP has resisted Democratic lawmakers’ demands for reforms to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), including mandating that they wear masks, as a condition of DHS funding.
In his social media post, Trump also called on Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) to “clearly identify” Republicans who may vote against the SAVE America Act and said that those GOP lawmakers “will never be elected again.”
Trump said that Republicans should kill the legislative filibuster and stay in Washington during the Easter holiday “if necessary.”
Over the weekend, the president confirmed that he would put ICE agents in airports until Democratic lawmakers agree to a DHS budget bill. Video and photos uploaded online showed that ICE agents were already being seen at the airports on the morning of March 23.
Proponents of the SAVE America Act, including Trump, have argued that it would help deter voter fraud, and they have asserted that there are large numbers of people who are in the country illegally who vote in U.S. elections.
Democrats and other critics of the bill have argued that it could disenfranchise Americans who lack ready access to passports, birth certificates, and other forms of identification. The Brennan Center for Justice and the University of Maryland have estimated that about 21 million Americans lack ready access to such documentation.
An opinion article by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) published in The New York Times on March 22 criticized some of Trump’s arguments and suggested the bill is a thinly veiled attempt by the Republicans to help themselves win the 2026 midterm elections.
“Republicans like to pretend that the SAVE Act is a voter ID bill,” he wrote. “Though on the surface it appears to be one, something far more insidious lies beneath: a system for purging eligible voters from the electorate—voters who are disproportionately likely to vote against Republicans.”
Polls have shown that a vast majority of Americans support mandating photo ID to vote in elections. In a Pew Research poll released in 2025, 83 percent of U.S. adults supported having all voters show a government-issued form of identification, and only 16 percent opposed it. That included 71 percent of Democrats and 76 percent of black voters.
Reuters contributed to this report.
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