Senate passes $70 billion ICE and Border Patrol funding bill after settlement fund fight

No Democrats supported the bill, and one Republican voted against it. Senate Republicans used a procedural maneuver to bypass the filibuster, allowing the package to pass without minority support. The bill funds enforcement operations central to Trump's migrant deportation crackdown but does not include a provision to ban a separate $1.776 billion settlement fund tied to Trump's lawsuit against the IRS over the leak of his tax returns.

A fight over a separate settlement fund

Most of the delay centered on that fund. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said earlier in the week that the settlement would not go forward, but his assurances failed to satisfy Democrats, who said a verbal commitment from a Trump appointee was insufficient. "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," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York, said on the floor.

Republicans offered a series of amendments aimed at neutralizing the fund. Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana proposed redirecting settlement payments to law enforcement officers injured during the January 6, 2021 Capitol attack, but that effort was defeated. A second amendment from Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina would have banned the fund outright and moved the money into a separate anti-fraud account at the Department of Justice. More than 10 Republicans supported that measure, but it also failed.

Tillis argued that codifying the fund's demise would spare his colleagues a politically uncomfortable vote before the November election. "If Blanche says this is largely inoperative, why not use this moment to codify that?" he asked. "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."

Republicans split on the Tillis amendment

Democrats also lost a narrow vote to ban the fund. Senators Jon Husted of Ohio and Dan Sullivan of Alaska, both up for reelection this year, joined Democrats in supporting that amendment, while Cassidy voted against it. Democrats had also pushed amendments to bar payments to January 6 defendants who injured law enforcement officers, but those were rejected as well.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a Republican from South Dakota, said the settlement question should be considered closed. "This would have been done several hours ago if we weren't having to deal with some of the issues around the fund," Thune said. He later called the matter a "settled issue" and pointed to Blanche's congressional testimony that the Justice Department would not move the fund forward.

Outlook for the House and the Blanche nomination

Cassidy countered that the fund remained legally active. He said the settlement is still part of an active agreement and "absolutely can be used," underscoring Democratic arguments that only legislation, not administration assurances, can lock the money away. President Trump told reporters on Wednesday that the settlement is "very important" and said "I'd have to ask the lawyers" when asked whether it was dead or on hold.

During the broader negotiations, lawmakers scrapped a separate $1 billion proposal that would have paid for White House security upgrades and construction of a new presidential ballroom. Congress had already funded the rest of the Department of Homeland Security at the end of April with Democratic support, leaving ICE and Border Patrol as the holdouts until Friday's vote.

Thune acknowledged that Blanche's confirmation to lead the Justice Department on a permanent basis could be difficult. Trump has said he intends to nominate Blanche, but the nomination would require Senate confirmation. "I find it very hard to believe that they're going to submit somebody who sat in front of a committee in the House and made definitive statements about this and then somehow all of a sudden turn around and go back on them," Thune told reporters. "I don't think that's going to happen."

The bill now heads to the House, where Speaker Mike Johnson will need to navigate similar dynamics around the settlement fund before it can be sent to the president's desk.