Sawt Falasteen - US Senate approves $70 billion for Trump immigration crackdown

The bill would fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol through the rest of Trump's term, handing the Republican leader a major victory on one of his signature issues after months of bitter fighting over the future of immigration enforcement.

It now heads to the House of Representatives, where Republican leaders hope to move it early next week to send it to Trump's desk.

The package follows a record partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) earlier this year, when Democrats refused to support new money for immigration enforcement without restrictions on tactics such as raids in sensitive locations and the use of masks by officers.

Republicans rejected those demands, instead choosing to fund ICE and Border Patrol through the fast-track "budget reconciliation" process, which allows them to bypass Democratic opposition if they can keep their own members united.

The Senate vote came after an hours-long amendment marathon known in Washington as a "vote-a-rama," a chaotic process allowing lawmakers to force votes on politically sensitive issues before final passage.

For Trump, the process meant renewed scrutiny of controversies that have alarmed members of his own party, including a proposed "anti-weaponization" fund for allies who claim they were unfairly targeted by the government and $1 billion that had been earmarked for security around his planned White House ballroom.

The underlying immigration bill no longer included the ballroom money, but both issues became symbols of a broader unease among Republicans about defending Trump's priorities ahead of midterm elections expected to be dominated by voter concerns over the cost of living.

- Rebellion -

The bill had been delayed for weeks after senators rebelled over the Justice Department's proposed $1.8 billion "anti-weaponization" compensation package, which critics attacked as a "slush fund" that could allow people convicted over the 2021 attack on the US Capitol to receive taxpayer money.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told lawmakers this week that the administration would not move forward with the fund. But Trump continued to praise it, calling it "beautiful" and saying he would have to "ask the lawyers" whether it was dead or merely paused.

That ambiguity pushed some Republicans to try to write the fund's demise into law.

"When you're explaining, you're losing. There's no way to explain the $1.776 (billion) fund. So the only way you can explain it is explain that you got rid of it," North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis told reporters.

The amendment votes did little to derail Trump's agenda but showed the limits of party discipline, with multiple Republicans defecting on measures targeting the anti-weaponization fund, future ballroom funding and Trump's move to install a loyalist housing official atop US intelligence.

Democrats also used the process to try to redirect immigration enforcement money toward housing and other affordability concerns, arguing that Republicans were prioritizing Trump's deportation agenda over the cost of living.

And in what was seen as a separate rebuke of Trump policy, several Republicans also backed a Democratic effort to circumvent House leadership with a vote to impose new sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine and provide $8 billion in military financing loans to Kyiv.

Republicans countered that the money was needed to restore immigration enforcement funding after the earlier DHS shutdown left the issue unresolved.

The earlier stopgap measure funded much of Homeland Security through September 30, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Coast Guard, the Transportation Security Administration and the Secret Service.

But it excluded ICE and Border Patrol, setting up the separate fight that ended with Friday's vote.

The result gives Trump a major legislative win on immigration while underscoring a recurring problem for Republican leaders: even with control of Congress, they must still manage internal resistance to the political baggage attached to some of the president's priorities.

Z.AlNajjar--SF-PST