WASHINGTON DC -- Senate Republicans overcame deep internal divisions to pass a massive $70 billion immigration enforcement package early Friday, delivering a major political win to President Donald Trump after weeks of struggling to pass the bill.

The bill – which funds Immigration and Customs Enforcement and border patrol through the rest of Trump’s term, protecting the agencies from future government shutdown fights – now goes to the House for final passage after a marathon 18-hour voting session in which only one Republican voted against it. It passed by a vote of 52-47.

In another win for Trump, Republicans ultimately approved the bill without killing the $1.8 billion Justice Department fund he had supported to compensate people who claim to have been victimized by the federal government. But GOP senators still endured hours of painful political votes, in which they repeatedly rejected efforts to formally kill the fund.

The immigration bill, which some Republicans predict could be Trump’s last major legislative victory before the midterms, had been stalled for weeks amid GOP controversy over the fund. Critics say it would serve as a slush fund for Trump allies and could grant payouts to rioters who attacked police officers during the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol.

Multiple Republicans – including lawmakers facing tough reelection races in November – voted in favor of formally blocking the fund, highlighting concern within the party over it.

In the end, however, the wider funding measure passed with Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska as the only Republican who voted against it.

The Trump administration had sought to convince Congress that the “anti-weaponization” fund was dead so Republicans would pass the stalled bill. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told lawmakers earlier in the week that the administration is “not moving forward with the fund, period.”

Trump, though, has been far less clear, defending the fund on Wednesday and refusing to commit to scrapping it permanently.

“I’d have to ask the lawyers, I don’t know,” Trump told CNN Wednesday on whether the fund is fully dead or just on hold. “As far as I’m concerned, it was a beautiful thing.”

Meanwhile, in a separate procedural vote early Friday, seven Senate Republicans and nearly all Democrats voted to block consideration of a contentious bill to reauthorize the nation’s spy powers, known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Democrats had said they would not support moving ahead with FISA after Trump appointed Bill Pulte — a housing official with no demonstrated national security experience — to serve as acting director of national intelligence.

Amendments targeting fund and other priorities fall short

In a dramatic start to the overnight voting session, the GOP-led Senate voted down an effort led by Democratic leader Chuck Schumer to shut down the DOJ fund – but only after hours of leadership arm-twisting.

Before the vote was gaveled closed, the GOP’s push to pass the immigration enforcement bill stalled for hours – forcing the Senate to a halt as GOP leaders were in talks with a group of Republican holdouts who had been refusing to vote down the Democratic attempt to kill the Trump administration’s controversial “anti-weaponization fund.”

The group of GOP holdouts, which included GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy, who recently lost his primary after public clashes with Trump, had been refusing to fall in line behind leadership. But Cassidy ultimately voted against the push from Democrats.

The chamber then blocked a push from retiring GOP Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina to put an end to the fund, with 11 other Republicans voting in favor, though Democrats argued that left room for the White House to resurrect it under another name.

Cassidy, who has become perhaps the loudest GOP critic of the fund, made his distaste for the fund clear in a court brief he submitted along with Democratic Sen. Cory Booker on Thursday in one of the legal challenges to the fund.

“The Anti-Weaponization Fund presents a threat to our constitutional democracy that this Court has never before been asked to confront,” the senators wrote in the friend-of-the-court brief.

They accused the administration of trying to make an end-run of Congress’ spending powers. They also said that the possibility that the fund would be used to compensate January 6 rioters amounted to a “scheme deliberately designed to recast insurrectionists—including those who perpetrated violence against law enforcement officers—as victims.”

Democrats also used the “vote-a-rama” to take aim at other Trump priorities. An amendment from Sen. Jeff Merkley to prohibit funding for Trump’s ballroom was defeated, though nearly a half dozen Republican senators voted with Democrats.

Republicans used the voting session as a chance to prove their loyalty to Trump on another matter – a contentious voter ID law that the president has demanded for months. GOP. Sen Lindsey Graham offered an amendment to add the “SAVE America Act,” which would require IDs and proof of US citizenship to vote, to the immigration bill. It needed 60 votes to pass but fell short as all Democrats were joined by four Republicans — Sens. Susan Collins, Murkowski, Mitch McConnell and Tillis — to oppose.

In the run-up to the vote on final passage, GOP leaders had been looking to defuse a potential revolt by a small gang of Republicans who had concerns about backing the immigration bill without explicitly killing the fund in writing.

Tillis said on Thursday that he would not vote for the immigration enforcement funding bill if it does not include an amendment to kill the “anti-weaponization” fund.

“No, I’m not going to,” Tillis told CNN when asked if he could support the bill without language to kill the fund.

Tillis, though, voted in favor of the final bill without new language after those 18-straight hours of votes.

This story has been updated with additional details.

The-CNN-Wire
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