WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate neared passage of $70 billion legislation that would fund President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement agencies as Democrats and some Republicans have tried to add language to permanently block Trump from creating a $1.776 billion settlement fund to compensate his political allies who believe they have been politically persecuted.
Republicans appeared to clear a final hurdle just before 4 a.m. Friday morning when they defeated an amendment proposed by one of their own members, Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, that would have redirected payments from the settlement to members of law enforcement who were injured in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol. That came after several other efforts by Democrats and Republicans to ban or limit the judgement fund.
The amendment was 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 24 hours haggling among themselves over whether to block the fund, even after acting Attorney General Todd Blanche 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 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.
Trump's judgment fund, which was part of a settlement that resolves his lawsuit against the IRS over the leak of his tax returns, has angered many Republican senators.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said this week that the fund would not move forward. But Trump, who has been at odds with Senate Republicans in recent weeks, 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.
The Senate also rejected an amendment from Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina on Thursday 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 settlement fund, some of which could potentially go to Trump supporters who beat police and attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, 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."
Passage 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 are using a complicated procedural maneuver to get around the filibuster and pass the budget legislation with no Democratic votes. But it has taken 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 remained without regular funding.
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Associated Press writers Kevin Freking and Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.
