Senate passes $70 billion immigration enforcement bill without limits on Trump settlement fund

Subscribed with another email? Logout and Login with that one. Account subscription benefits alongside Premium Stories, Editorials, Opinions and more. Unlock these with Subscription The View From India Looking at World Affairs from the Indian perspective. First Day First Show News and reviews from the world of cinema and streaming. Today's Cache Your download of the top 5 technology stories of the day. Science For All The weekly newsletter from science writers takes the jargon out of science and puts the fun in! Data Point Decoding the headlines with facts, figures, and numbers THEdge At the cutting edge of education and careers Health Matters Ramya Kannan writes to you on getting to good health, and staying there Gender Agenda Stories from beyond the binary. The Hindu On Books Books of the week, reviews, excerpts, new titles and features. Published - June 05, 2026 03:20 pm IST - Washington U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) uses a phone, on the day of Senate votes, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., on June 4, 2026 | Photo Credit: Reuters The Senate passed legislation to fund President Donald Trump's immigration enforcement agencies early on Friday (June 5, 2026) morning, after weeks of delays and fierce backlash to an unrelated $1.776 billion settlement fund that threatened to derail the Bill. Senators voted 52-47 for the $70 billion legislation to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol for the next three years, through the end of Mr. Trump's term. The final vote came just before 5 a.m., after Republicans narrowly defeated multiple attempts by Democrats and Republicans to add language to the Bill that would permanently ban Trump's settlement fund for political allies who believe they have been politically persecuted. Republicans cleared a major hurdle overnight when they defeated an amendment proposed by one of their own members, Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, that would have redirected payments from the settlement to members of law enforcement who were injured in the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol. The amendments were a test of party unity that complicated what should have been an easy vote for Republicans who wanted to keep the focus on immigration enforcement in an election year. Instead, they spent almost a full day haggling among themselves over whether to block the settlement fund, even after acting Attorney General Todd Blanche had said earlier this week that it would not go forward. “This would have been done several hours ago if we weren't having to deal with some of the issues around the fund,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-SD, said shortly before midnight. Thune himself has criticised the judgement fund, which was part of a settlement that resolves Trump's lawsuit against the IRS over the leak of his tax returns and has angered many of his GOP colleagues. But he has been pushing GOP senators for weeks to keep the bill focused on the funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol, which Democrats have blocked since early this year, and to avoid adding new provisions that could complicate its passage in the House. Still, a group of Republican senators pushed all day and into the night to block the settlement's payouts through legislation. That effort came after Trump raised new doubts about the settlement's future Wednesday afternoon — just after the Senate had voted to start debate on the immigration bill — when he told reporters that the settlement is “very important” and said “I don't know” whether it is dead or on hold. The first vote on Thursday (June 4, 2026) morning, a Democratic effort to ban the settlement, was held open for several hours as three senators, including Mr. Cassidy, decided whether to support it. The Democratic motion was narrowly defeated when Cassidy eventually voted against it and the two other GOP senators — Jon Husted of Ohio and Dan Sullivan of Alaska, both of whom are up for reelection this year — voted for it. The Senate then rejected a second amendment from Republican Senetor Thom Tillis of North Carolina that would also have banned the settlement fund but moved the money to a separate anti-fraud fund at the Department of Justice. Most Democrats voted against the amendment, guaranteeing its defeat, but more than 10 Republicans supported it. Mr. Tillis said the fund is a political liability for the party. “If Blanche says this is largely inoperative, why not use this moment to codify that?” Mr. Tillis 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.” Mr. Cassidy's amendment to compensate the injured police officers was a pointed rebuke, as payouts from Trump's fund could have potentially gone to Trump supporters who beat police and attacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Despite Blanche's comments,

Senate passes $70 billion immigration enforcement bill without limits on Trump settlement fund

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Senate passes $70 billion immigration enforcement bill without limits on Trump settlement fund

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