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After delays spurred by shock announcements from the Trump administration, Senate Republicans have officially launched their play to fund immigration enforcement.
The upper chamber took the first step in the last leg of the process to advance a roughly $70 billion package to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol after being derailed by the administration’s surprise “anti-weaponization” fund.
It comes after uncertainty over whether Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s testimony under oath that the administration was “not moving forward with the fund” would be enough to satisfy skeptical Republicans.
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Republican leaders hope that the unity on display Wednesday afternoon carries through the forthcoming “vote-a-rama,” where Democrats, and some Republicans, are considering several amendments to ensure that the nearly $2 billion fund is dead and never returns.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., acknowledged that there may be some Republicans who weren’t satisfied with Blanche’s testimony, and reiterated that the main goal was to “get the base bill across the finish line.”
“Hopefully, all of our members who have amendment ideas will, as they think through that, and they have the opportunities to have conversations … about their ideas, keep in mind we need to keep the bill together and make sure we’ve got 50 votes for it,” Thune said.
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The fund, announced last month as part of a settlement between the Trump family and the Internal Revenue Service, received strong pushback from Republicans who feared that without proper guardrails, people convicted of assaulting police officers during the Jan. 6, 2021, riot on Capitol Hill could access the taxpayer funds.
Republicans who were irate at the fund are still deciding whether they’ll support amendments, and beyond that, whether they will support final passage from the upper chamber.
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., wanted a guarantee from leadership that his add-on to permanently kill any attempt at an “anti-weaponization” fund would at least get a vote. And if there’s no language that makes its way into the package that addresses the fund, he said, “It’s going to be hard for me to vote yes.”
“I mean, I think we got to know this is a huge political liability,” Tillis told reporters. “I said it was stupid on stilts a week or two ago.”
Senate Democrats intend to take advantage of any lingering fractures among Republicans with a plethora of amendments on the fund, along with other issues like the war in Iran and affordability.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said, “Whenever we go into a vote-a-rama, Democrats will be ready.”
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“Every vote, every amendment we bring to the floor will demonstrate that Democrats are standing up for the American people, and Republicans are selling out to Donald Trump,” Schumer said.
Meanwhile, the ‘anti-weaponization’ fund, along with scrapped funding for security upgrades to President Donald Trump’s ballroom, became a distraction from the reconciliation package’s primary purpose.
Republicans turned to the process after congressional Democrats refused to fund immigration enforcement absent stringent reforms — that dispute led to the longest government shutdown in history.
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But the march to fund ICE and Border Patrol has been marred at times by infighting, either within the Senate GOP or with the administration, that has threatened to blow up the exercise.
Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, R-Wyo., said that Republicans were “moving in the right direction,” despite the issues that have cropped up.
“We need to get border security funded, we need to get immigration and customs enforcement funded,” Barrasso said. “And the Democrats continue to stand — and I am sure they will today — stand with illegal immigrant criminals over the safety and security of the American people.”