President Trump’s budget director Russell Vought and his border czar Tom Homan told Senate Republicans on Tuesday that the administration is running out of money to carry out the president’s border security and immigration enforcement executive orders. 

They asked lawmakers to pass a $175 billion infusion, saying that would be enough to fund the president’s border and immigration plans, including finishing construction of the border wall and hiring more Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to round up and deport unauthorized immigrants. 

“We’re not building a wall, folks. We’re hitting a wall,” Senate Budget Chairman Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, told reporters after the meeting. “They need the money, and they need it now.”

Mr. Vought and Mr. Homan, who is also the acting director of ICE, visited Capitol Hill as congressional Republicans are wrestling with the best strategy for passing border funding and other parts of the president’s legislative agenda through the budget reconciliation process.

Senators said Mr. Vought and Mr. Homan did not weigh in on the strategic debate, but their push for quick funding is why the Senate has proposed breaking up the Trump agenda into two reconciliation bills. 

Under the Senate plan, the first bill would focus on urgent national security needs like border security, immigration enforcement, defense and energy. The second bill would focus on sweeping tax and spending cuts. 

House Republicans want to combine the priorities into one massive bill and potentially include a debt-limit increase. 

“The president says he wants one bill. It’s unclear to me from these guys if they want one bill,” said Sen. Josh Hawley, Missouri Republican, of Mr. Vought and Mr. Homan. “I think they want funding. I don’t think they really care about the vehicle.”

Both chambers are planning to advance budget resolutions needed to kick-start their plans through committee this week. 

Mr. Graham unveiled on Friday the Senate budget resolution, which allows for up to $345 billion in total new spending over four years, including the requested $175 billion for border security and immigration enforcement and $150 billion for boosting the national defense. He said the spending would be fully offset over the same four-year period. 

House Republicans have yet to unveil their budget blueprint amid internal discord over how much spending to cut to make up for the high cost of the tax cuts. Those complications are why the Senate thinks it’s better to save those details for a second reconciliation effort. 

“If the Republican Party cannot provide the money to the Trump administration to do all the things they need to do to make us safe, we have nobody to blame but ourselves,” Mr. Graham said. “Because we have the ability through reconciliation to do this, and I just want to do it sooner rather than later.” 

Mr. Graham said the Senate is moving “because we have to,” but he acknowledged their budget is effectively a Plan B if the House can’t move quickly enough.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, South Dakota, backed up Mr. Graham’s two-bill plan.

“We view it as complementary with the House. Now granted they are on a different track, but that’s why we have this process,” he said. “We will figure out how to get to the finish line.”

Mr. Graham’s budget resolution will be marked up in committee on Wednesday and Thursday. Senate leaders have yet to announce a timeline for floor action, but some Republicans said it could be as soon as next week. 

The presentation from Mr. Vought and Mr. Homan underscored the need to move fast, Republicans senators said. Mr. Graham suggested House Speaker Mike Johnson should invite the duo to present their case to House Republicans as well. 

“We’re living on borrowed time,” Mr. Graham said. “I’ve never been more worried about a terrorist attack on our homeland than I am now.”

Mr. Vought specifically underscored the funding constraints that ICE is operating under as it undertakes massive operations to identify, arrest and deport unauthorized immigrants. The budget director said the administration has shifted money to the effort where legally allowed but “can’t rob other accounts any longer,” according to Mr. Graham. 

Mr. Homan spoke about how some of the funding would go to help find the 300,000 missing migrant children whom the Office of Refugee Resettlement lost track of, according to an inspector general report. 

“After Tom talked about trying to find these children, half of us started to cry,” Mr. Graham said. “You have no idea what hell these kids are going through.”

• Lindsey McPherson can be reached at lmcpherson@washingtontimes.com.