In a significant legislative move, the Senate approved a bill early Friday morning to secure funding for President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement agencies, overcoming weeks of delay and controversy surrounding an unrelated settlement fund. The legislation, which passed with a 52-47 vote, allocates $70 billion to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol, ensuring their operation through the remainder of Trump’s presidency.
The passage of the bill came after a prolonged session that extended into the early hours, marked by Republican and Democratic efforts to amend the bill to include a ban on Trump’s contentious $1.776 billion settlement fund. This fund, intended for political allies claiming persecution, has been a point of contention, threatening to derail the bill’s progress.
A key turning point in the debate was the narrow defeat of an amendment from Republican Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana. His proposal aimed to redirect funds from the settlement to support law enforcement officers injured during the January 6 Capitol attack. This amendment, along with others, tested party unity, creating internal conflict among Republicans who were keen to maintain the bill’s focus on immigration enforcement ahead of upcoming elections.
The internal Republican discussions, aimed at resolving the settlement fund issue, extended a process that could have otherwise concluded much sooner. Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota remarked on the situation, noting that the delays were primarily due to disagreements over the fund, despite assurances from acting Attorney General Todd Blanche that the fund would not proceed.
The amendments were a test of party unity that complicated what should have been an easy vote for Republicans who wanted to keep the focus on immigration enforcement in an election year. Instead, they spent almost a full day haggling among themselves over whether to block the settlement fund, even after acting Attorney General Todd Blanche had said earlier this week that it would not go forward.
“This would have been done several hours ago if we weren’t having to deal with some of the issues around the fund,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.), said shortly before midnight.
Thune himself has criticized the judgement fund, which was part of a settlement that resolves Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS over the leak of his tax returns and has angered many of his GOP colleagues. But he has been pushing GOP senators for weeks to keep the bill focused on the funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol, which Democrats have blocked since early this year, and to avoid adding new provisions that could complicate its passage in the House.
Still, a group of Republican senators pushed all day and into the night to block the settlement’s payouts through legislation. That effort came after Trump raised new doubts about the settlement’s future Wednesday afternoon — just after the Senate had voted to start debate on the immigration bill — when he told reporters that the settlement is “very important” and said “I don’t know” whether it is dead or on hold.
“I’d have to ask the lawyers,” he said.
Senators push back multiple attempts to ban settlement fund
The first vote on Thursday morning, a Democratic effort to ban the settlement, was held open for several hours as three senators, including Cassidy, decided whether to support it. The Democratic motion was narrowly defeated when Cassidy eventually voted against it and the two other GOP senators — Jon Husted of Ohio and Dan Sullivan of Alaska, both of whom are up for reelection this year — voted for it.
The Senate then rejected a second amendment from Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina that would also have banned the settlement fund but moved the money to a separate anti-fraud fund at the Department of Justice. Most Democrats voted against the amendment, guaranteeing its defeat, but more than 10 Republicans supported it.
Tillis said the fund is a political liability for the party.
“If Blanche says this is largely inoperative, why not use this moment to codify that?” Tillis said. “Otherwise, you’re exposing every one of our members who are in cycle to having to deal with this between today and Election Day, and that makes no sense for something that the DOJ says they’re not moving forward with.”
Cassidy’s amendment to compensate the injured police officers was a pointed rebuke, as payouts from Trump’s fund could have potentially gone to Trump supporters who beat police and attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Despite Blanche’s comments, Cassidy said that the fund is still part of an active settlement and “absolutely can be used.”
The Senate rejected several other Democratic efforts to try to block or limit the fund, including amendments to ban payments to Jan. 6 defendants who injured law enforcement officers.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Republicans are now “leaving taxpayers to rely on nothing more than a promise from Donald Trump’s personal fixer. That is not accountability. That is a permission slip.”
ICE and Border Patrol money has been delayed for months
Enactment of the roughly $70 billion bill to fund ICE and the Border Patrol would end the blockade by Democrats who demanded policy changes after the fatal shootings of two protesters by federal agents in January. The bill would fund the agencies for three years, through the end of Trump’s term.
Senate Republicans used a complicated procedural maneuver to get around the filibuster and pass the budget legislation with no Democratic votes. But it took weeks to get the bill to the Senate floor as Republicans navigated various obstacles to passage created by Trump and the White House — including a $1 billion proposal for White House security and Trump’s ballroom that they eventually scrapped and the fierce bipartisan backlash to the settlement fund.
Democrats say any funding bill for the Homeland Security Department should place restraints on federal immigration authorities, including better identification for federal officers and more use of judicial warrants, among other asks.
After federal agents shot Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, Trump agreed to a Democratic request that the Homeland Security bill be separated from a larger spending measure that became law. But bipartisan negotiations went nowhere, and the department funding lapsed in mid-February with no agreement on changes to the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement tactics.
Congress eventually funded the rest of the Homeland Security Department at the end of April with Democratic support, but ICE and Border Patrol have remained without regular funding.
Associated Press writers Kevin Freking and Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.
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