Senate passes $70B immigration enforcement bill without limits on Trump
settlement fund
[June 05, 2026]
By MARY CLARE JALONICK and JOEY CAPPELLETTI
WASHINGTON (AP) — 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 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.
“I’d have to ask the lawyers,” he said.
Senators push back multiple attempts to ban settlement fund
The first vote on Thursday morning, a Democratic effort to ban the
settlement, was held open for several hours as three senators, including
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 Sen. 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.
Tillis said the fund is a political liability for the party.
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Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., walks to the chamber during votes on the
immigration enforcement funding package, at the Capitol in
Washington, Thursday, June 4, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
“If Blanche says this is largely inoperative, why not use this
moment to codify that?” 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.”
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
Jan. 6, 2021.
Despite Blanche's comments, Cassidy said that the fund is still part
of an active settlement and “absolutely can be used.”
The Senate rejected several other Democratic efforts to try to block
or limit the fund, including amendments to ban payments to Jan. 6
defendants who injured law enforcement officers.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Republicans are
now “leaving taxpayers to rely on nothing more than a promise from
Donald Trump’s personal fixer. That is not accountability. That is a
permission slip.”
ICE and Border Patrol money has been delayed for months
Enactment of the roughly $70 billion bill to fund ICE and the Border
Patrol would end the blockade by Democrats who demanded policy
changes after the fatal shootings of two protesters by federal
agents in January. The bill would fund the agencies for three years,
through the end of Trump’s term.
Senate Republicans used a complicated procedural maneuver to get
around the filibuster and pass the budget legislation with no
Democratic votes. But it took weeks to get the bill to the Senate
floor as Republicans navigated various obstacles to passage created
by Trump and the White House — including a $1 billion proposal for
White House security and Trump’s ballroom that they eventually
scrapped and the fierce bipartisan backlash to the settlement fund.
Democrats say any funding bill for the Homeland Security Department
should place restraints on federal immigration authorities,
including better identification for federal officers and more use of
judicial warrants, among other asks.
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 became law. But
bipartisan negotiations went nowhere, and the department funding
lapsed in mid-February with no agreement on changes to the Trump
administration’s immigration enforcement tactics.
Congress eventually funded the rest of the Homeland Security
Department at the end of April with Democratic support, but ICE and
Border Patrol has remained without regular funding.
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Associated Press writers Kevin Freking and Lisa Mascaro contributed
to this report.
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