Republicans in the United States Senate have renewed their push to pass a controversial $70bn immigration-enforcement funding bill, a top policy priority for President Donald Trump.
But the effort on Thursday faced a series of hurdles, with Democrats forcing votes on several amendments that highlighted controversies related to the Trump presidency.
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The rapid-fire votes on the amendments were dubbed a “vote-a-rama“, and they are slated to include issues ranging from Trump’s White House ballroom to his tariff policies and the US-Israel war on Iran.
“Amendment after amendment, vote after vote, Republicans are going to have to answer to the American people,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said.
Early on, Republicans were forced to confront a topic that has dominated headlines in recent weeks: Trump’s proposed $1.776bn “anti-weaponisation” fund.
The fund has been controversial on both sides of the aisle, with critics calling it a slush fund for Trump’s allies.
Several Republicans indicated that the optics of such a fund could be politically catastrophic ahead of November’s midterm elections, and the Department of Justice has since backed away from the scheme.
But Trump himself has avoided saying whether the fund was dead, or just on hold.
It was created as part of a settlement following a lawsuit Trump filed against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), a part of his government, and it was designed to award payouts to alleged victims of politically motivated prosecution.
Senate Democrats have repeatedly called for such a fund to be banned outright, rather than relying on the Trump administration’s commitment not to revive it.
Nevertheless, on Thursday, Senate Republicans rejected the Democrats’ measure to permanently block the fund.
Republican Tom Tillis introduced a second amendment, which would have also banned the settlement fund. Instead, the legislation would have redirected the allocated funds to a separate anti-fraud fund within the Justice Department. That, too, was rejected.
Thursday’s votes on the “anti-weaponisation” fund were just the start of several rounds of voting on issues uncomfortable to the Republican Party.
Schumer, the top Democrat, signalled that other amendments would tackle another part of the IRS settlement: the permanent immunity from tax audits that Trump had secured for himself and his family.
Trump’s controversial immigration enforcement campaign and other issues were also scheduled to be taken up in the day’s amendments.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said he was not sure whether Republicans would defeat every measure, with some members of the party showing an increasing willingness to stand up to Trump.
“I can’t predict how it comes out,” he said.
Immigration funding bill
The situation on Thursday was the result of a standoff between Democrats and Republicans over the Trump administration’s approach to immigration enforcement.
Democrats had pledged not to approve further funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), following the killing of two US citizens during immigration operations in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Republicans control 53 seats in the 100-seat chamber, short of the 60-vote threshold needed to overcome a filibuster.
They have instead been forced to pursue a lengthy procedural manoeuvre to bypass the filibuster, which has taken weeks.
The $70bn funding bill had been stalled by the Trump administration’s demand to include $1bn for security upgrades for Trump’s White House ballroom project.
The request came after the president had repeatedly said that no taxpayer dollars would go towards the project.
The security funding, which roiled several Republicans, was subsequently dropped before the voting started.
The Senate’s parliamentarian, an official who interprets the chamber’s rules, had previously ruled that adding ballroom funding to the $70bn bill would make it ineligible for the budget reconciliation process, which allows the passage of fiscal-related bills with a simple majority.
If Senate Republicans remain unified, they are expected to pass the funding bill late Thursday night or early Friday.
The Republican-controlled House of Representatives is expected to take up the bill shortly after.
