Senate Rejects First Effort to Bar Trump from Creating $1.8B Settlement Fund

washington: Senate Republicans cleared the first hurdle Thursday in trying to pass legislation to fund President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement agencies, narrowly defeating an effort by Democrats to permanently block Trump from creating a $1.776 billion settlement fund to pay allies who claim they are being persecuted by the government.

Republicans still face changes Democrats must make for the bill to move forward, putting party unity to the test throughout the day. More votes are planned for the settlement fund, including on Republican proposals, and it’s unclear whether GOP leaders will be able to fend them all off and pass the legislation.

“I can’t predict how this is going to play out,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters in between talks with some opponents outside the Senate.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Democrats plan to vote on the tax immunity granted to Trump as part of the deal and a host of other issues, including Trump’s East Wing ballroom project, tariffs, his war with Iran and his immigration enforcement campaign.

“Amendment after amendment, vote after vote, Republicans will have to be accountable to the American people,” Schumer said.

Reconciliation fund roils Senate GOP conference Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said this week that the fund would not move forward, and many GOP senators said Wednesday they were pleased with his words.

But Trump, who has been at odds with Senate Republicans in recent weeks, raised new doubts about the deal’s future when he told reporters on Wednesday afternoon — just after the Senate voted to open debate on the immigration bill — that the deal was “very important” and added “I don’t know” whether the deal is dead or pending.

“I need to ask the lawyers,” he said.

Republican Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, John Husted of Ohio and Dan Sullivan of Alaska resisted Democrats’ amendment banning the deal for nearly three hours amid debate over whether to vote for it.

Cassidy, who ultimately voted against the amendment, lost re-election in the GOP primary two weeks ago after Trump endorsed his opponent. Husted and Sullivan, who voted against, are up for re-election in November.

Senators later rejected a second amendment from Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, which also would have banned the settlement fund but transferred the money to a separate anti-fraud fund at the Justice Department. Most Democrats voted against the amendment, ensuring defeat, but more than 10 Republicans supported the legislation.

“If Blanche says it’s largely unworkable, why not use this moment to enact it?” Tillis said the following before the vote. “Otherwise you’re exposing every single one of our members who are in the loop having to deal with this between now and Election Day, and that doesn’t mean anything for something that the Department of Justice says they’re not moving forward with.”

It was unclear how Republicans would vote on additional changes. Cassidy also plans to pursue an additional effort to restrict funding and is seen holding talks with the Senate parliamentarian throughout the morning as he puts his proposals for review.

ICE and Border Patrol money has long been a struggle Passage of the nearly $70 billion bill to fund U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol would end a blockade by Democrats who demanded a policy change after two protesters were fatally shot by federal agents in January. The bill would provide funding to the agencies for three years until the end of Trump’s term.

Senate Republicans are using a complex procedural maneuver to overcome the filibuster and pass budget legislation without Democratic votes. But it took weeks for the bill to be introduced to the Senate as Republicans overcame passage hurdles created by Trump and the White House; This included a fierce bipartisan backlash over the $1 billion bid for White House security and the settlement fund, which they ultimately dropped.

“What we’re trying to do here is continue to focus on the funding of ICE and CBP,” Thune said Wednesday evening after the Senate voted to begin debating the legislation.

“This has been narrow and targeted and clean from the very beginning, and we’re trying to keep it that way,” he said.

Democrats say any funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security should impose restrictions on federal immigration officials, including better identification of federal officers and greater use of judicial warrants, among other demands.

After federal agents shot Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, Trump agreed to a Democratic request that the Homeland Security bill be separated from a larger spending measure that had become law. But bipartisan negotiations went nowhere, with DHS funding expiring in mid-February and no agreement reached on changes to the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement tactics.

Congress eventually funded the rest of the Department of Homeland Security in late April with support from Democrats. But ICE and Border Patrol remain without regular funding, and Republicans have launched a new effort to provide three years of funding to those agencies for which Democrats have no votes.

Security money dropped for Trump’s ballroom Work on the bill has been delayed due to Republican opposition to a $1 billion security fund added to the original bill for the White House, including Trump’s new ballroom.

Democrats and some Republicans questioned the use of taxpayer money for the massive project, and Republicans did not include it in the final bill when it was released Wednesday.

House Republican leaders said Wednesday they want to approve the legislation before the weekend if the Senate can complete it. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., said House leaders are having internal conversations about the program.

“We have to make sure everyone is there,” Scalise said.