The US Senate has passed legislation to fund President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement agencies, after weeks of delays and fierce backlash to an unrelated $1.776 billion settlement fund that threatened to derail the bill.
Senators voted 52-47 to pass the $70 billion legislation to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol for the next three years, through the end of Trump’s term, after Democrats had blocked the money for months.
The bill will now head to the House, which is expected to take it up next week.
The final vote came on Friday morning after Republicans narrowly defeated multiple attempts by members of both parties to add language to the bill that would permanently ban Trump’s settlement fund for allies who believe they’ve been politically persecuted.
The passage of the bill in the Senate is seen as a victory for the president and his party, who have been eager to pass it, and as a rebuke to Democrats’ opposition to it, in the middle of an election year when their control of Congress is at stake.
Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, was the only Republican to oppose the measure, joining Democrats.
ICE funding clash
Republicans argued that Democrats were seizing on the controversy surrounding the Justice Department's $1.776 billion anti-weaponisation settlement fund, despite it not being part of the legislation, to divert attention from their opposition to increased funding for ICE and the Border Patrol.
The dispute had nevertheless become a major hurdle to advancing the immigration enforcement bill.
On Thursday morning, Senate Majority Leader John Thune sought to refocus the debate on the measure itself, urging lawmakers to focus on what Republicans viewed as a straightforward effort to fund immigration enforcement agencies and unite the party around a key policy priority.
“We are here today only because Democrats refuse to appropriate a single dollar for our border and immigration law enforcement,” Thune said.
