Senate clears $70B ICE bill, sidelining settlement fight

Senate clears – The Senate approved a $70 billion package to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol for the next three years, delivering a late-night breakthrough after weeks of procedural delays tied to backlash over a separate $1.776 billion settlement f

For weeks, the fight over immigration funding was stuck behind one question: whether Republicans would allow a separate, politically explosive settlement fund to keep moving.

In the early hours of Friday, that fight finally ended—at least for now. The Senate passed legislation to fund President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement agencies, voting 52-47 to move a $70 billion bill forward.

The measure would provide funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol for the next three years, through the end of Trump’s term. It cleared the Senate just before 5 a.m., and will now head to the House, which is expected to take it up next week.

The timing mattered. The final vote came after Republicans narrowly defeated multiple attempts—by members of both parties—to add language that would permanently ban Trump’s $1.776 billion settlement fund for allies who believe they were politically persecuted.

Right at the center of the last-hours scramble was Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., who said shortly before midnight: “This would have been done several hours ago if we weren’t having to deal with some of the issues around the fund.”

Thune has criticized the settlement fund. which stems from a settlement resolving Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS over the leak of his tax returns. But he has also pushed for keeping the immigration bill focused and avoiding new provisions that could make it harder for Republicans to carry the package through the House.

Still, a knot of Republican senators spent almost a full day and into the night trying to block the fund’s payouts through amendments—turning what Republicans hoped would be a straightforward election-year vote into an internal test of party unity.

The stakes rose even higher earlier this week after Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said the fund would not go forward. though the Senate debate continued to revolve around whether that outcome was final. During a separate flashpoint on Wednesday. Trump also raised fresh doubts. telling reporters it is “very important” and adding. “I don’t know” whether the fund is dead or on hold.

That uncertainty became the backdrop for a marathon set of votes—one designed to pressure Republicans not just on immigration enforcement, but on whether the settlement fund would be treated as politically untouchable.

Before the final approval, the Senate’s first major test arrived Thursday morning. A Democratic effort to ban the settlement fund was held open for several hours while Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, along with two other Republican senators, weighed whether to back it. The Democratic motion was narrowly defeated when Cassidy voted against it. while two other senators—Jon Husted of Ohio and Dan Sullivan of Alaska—voted for it.

The Senate then rejected a second amendment from Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina. His proposal would have banned the settlement fund but moved the money to a separate anti-fraud fund at the Department of Justice. Most Democrats opposed it, ensuring it would fail. Still, more than 10 Republicans supported Tillis’s amendment.

Tillis framed the dispute as a political liability. “If Blanche says this is largely inoperative, why not use this moment to codify that?” he 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 added another sharp edge to the debate. He proposed compensating injured police officers. arguing the settlement could otherwise potentially send payments to Trump supporters who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, after trying to overturn Trump’s 2020 presidential election loss.

Cassidy’s move landed as more than an amendment. It reflected anger inside the party toward how the settlement’s payouts could be interpreted. Cassidy lost reelection last month after Trump endorsed a primary opponent.

Cassidy said that despite Blanche’s comments, the settlement fund is still part of an active settlement and “absolutely can be used.”

The Senate rejected other Democratic efforts to block or limit the fund, including amendments aimed at banning payments to Jan. 6 defendants who injured law enforcement officers.

Democrats argued the settlement language left the outcome too dependent on Trump’s future decisions rather than enforceable law. 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.”.

All of this unfolded while another deadline was pressing: ICE and Border Patrol funding had been delayed for months.

The bill’s passage is meant to end the blockade by Democrats that had demanded policy changes after the fatal shootings of two protesters by federal agents in January. The shootings included Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.

Republicans used a complicated procedural maneuver to get around the filibuster and pass the budget legislation with no Democratic votes, but it still took weeks to clear the Senate floor.

During that stretch, Republicans navigated obstacles tied not only to immigration politics but also to negotiations inside the wider government spending process— including a $1 billion proposal for White House security and Trump’s ballroom, both of which Republicans eventually scrapped.

Democrats had said any funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security should include restraints on federal immigration authorities. including better identification for federal officers and more use of judicial warrants. After federal agents shot Good and Pretti in Minneapolis. Trump agreed to a Democratic request to separate the Homeland Security bill from a larger spending measure that became law.

But bipartisan negotiations over the needed changes went nowhere, and department funding lapsed in mid-February without an agreement on changes to the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement tactics.

Congress later funded the rest of DHS at the end of April with Democratic support, but ICE and Border Patrol remained without regular funding.

Now, the Senate has moved the $70 billion bill forward anyway—leaving the House as the next test, where the settlement fight will likely follow the immigration funding question into a new chamber.

The new law, if it survives, would run through the end of Trump’s term, giving immigration enforcement agencies funding they’ve lacked for months—yet the broader controversy over what becomes of the $1.776 billion settlement fund is far from finished.

U.S. Senate ICE funding Border Patrol $70 billion bill Donald Trump Todd Blanche $1.776 billion settlement fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Jan. 6 attack Minneapolis shootings