WASHINGTON — The Senate passed legislation to fund President Donald Trump's immigration enforcement agencies early Friday 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 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 Jan.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-S.D., said shortly before midnight.Thune himself has criticized 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 ...