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The Senate passed a major immigration enforcement funding bill early Friday morning, marking a major step forward for the effort to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), as well as Customs and Border Protection (CBP) for the rest of President Donald Trump’s term.
The chamber voted 52-47 to pass the $70 billion party-line budget bill, which Republicans refer to as the “Secure America Act.”
All Republicans except for Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska voted in favor of the bill and all Democrats except for Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado, who was absent to participate in a gubernatorial primary debate in his home state, voted against it.
Friday morning’s result gets Congress closer to turning the page on a months-long debate over immigration enforcement funding.
For months, Democrats have refused to fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) immigration agencies without Republicans agreeing to codify restraints on them.
Congressional Republicans eventually decided on a split approach to funding DHS—relying on Democrat votes to fund the non-immigration functions of the agency, while using the partisan process of budget reconciliation to inject funding into immigration agencies.
Murkowski said that she objected to the use of reconciliation—which requires a simple majority in the Senate—to fund DHS.
“I believe very strongly that we needed to fund ICE and CBP, but to completely bypass regular order and the appropriations process by funding for three and a half years, to me … it takes it out of the process that we have always looked to for funding our agencies,” she said.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., continued to denounce the bill after its passage, which a statement from his office referred to as “$70 billion for President Trumps’ corrupt police force.”
The process of getting the bill across the finish line was complicated by disagreements over two topics: the creation of an “anti-weaponization fund” and funding for security at the White House’s East Wing.
Multiple Republican senators, including Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, opposed the creation of a compensation fund for those the administration considers victims of “weaponization and lawfare.”
The fund, which was not part of the bill, was created by a settlement agreement in President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) over the leak of his tax records.
This dispute, which was complicating the passage of the bill, was eventually settled when the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced it would abide by a court ruling blocking the creation of the fund.
Additionally, Senate Republicans chose to exclude a section of the bill that included funding for security at the White House’s East Wing, where Trump wishes to build a ballroom.
Now, the House of Representatives must pass the bill for it to go to the president’s desk.
House leadership, however, is not holding a vote on the bill this week.
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