The Senate passed roughly $70 billion in new funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol early Friday, clearing the legislation 52-47 just before 5 a.m. after a marathon amendment session that stretched beyond 18 hours. The bill funds the two immigration-enforcement agencies through the end of President Donald Trump's term, locking in a three-year financing stream for the administration's central domestic priority.
Every Democrat opposed the measure, and Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska was the lone Republican to vote against it, leaving the party with almost no margin for error. The narrow tally underscored how tightly Majority Leader John Thune had to manage his caucus through a so-called vote-a-rama, the open-ended series of amendment votes that allowed senators to force more than two dozen roll calls before final passage.
Much of the friction centered not on immigration but on an unrelated Justice Department account critics call the 'anti-weaponization' fund, which would provide taxpayer-backed settlements to people who claim the federal government improperly targeted them. Opponents warned the roughly $1.8 billion fund could be used to compensate the president's political allies, and Democrats offered repeated amendments to eliminate or restrict it.
None of those amendments reached the 60 votes needed to attach to the bill, though several drew bipartisan support. Republican senators including Susan Collins of Maine, Jon Husted of Ohio, Dan Sullivan of Alaska and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana voiced unease about the fund even as they ultimately allowed the underlying legislation to advance.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche testified that the administration did not intend to move forward with the settlement program, but he declined to commit that pledge to writing, frustrating lawmakers who wanted a binding guarantee. Thune characterized Blanche's assurance as 'definitive,' a framing that helped hold wavering Republicans in line through the final votes.
The bill now moves to the House, where leaders are not expected to take it up before next week. Its passage hands the White House a significant legislative win on enforcement spending while leaving the dispute over the Justice Department fund unresolved, a fight likely to resurface as the measure works its way through the lower chamber.