Congress passes $70B for immigration enforcement, ending months-long fight

WASHINGTON — Congress has finally passed a $70 billion funding bill for federal immigration enforcement on Tuesday, putting to rest a four-month fight over the fate of President Trump’s mass deportations agenda.House Republicans, in a party-line vote of 214-212, approved the spending for the Department of Homeland Security after the Senate had passed the measure last Friday.Democrats were universally opposed and joined in that opposition by Rep.

Kevin Kiley (I-Calif.), who recently left the GOP.“With today’s vote, House and Senate Republicans have officially ended the third Democrat government shutdown of this Congress,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) in a statement.“And here’s the end result of Democrats’ record-setting obstruction: CBP and ICE will now be funded for the remainder of President Trump’s term and Democrats will have no ability to defund these agencies in the 119th or 120th Congresses.”DHS had been unfunded mostly from mid-February to April, with some immigration enforcement-focused agencies still requiring funding after that.

The measure now moves to Trump’s desk for his signature.Republicans had quibbled over including provisions for $1 billion for beefed up security at Trump’s White House ballroom, as well as a potential prohibition against using any funds for a $1.776 billion judgment fund to compensate perceived victims of “weaponized” prosecutions.Neither item was tucked into the bill after weeks of deliberations — despite some GOP senators offering amendments to do away with the fund — and the legislation was passed by a simple majority in both chambers through a process known as budget reconciliation.Sen.Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) was the only Republican to oppose it.Democrats in the upper chamber had delayed passage for three months before that, refusing to back an earlier spending measure in January in protest of federal immigration officers’ fatal shootings of two Americans in Minneapolis.The Secu...