The Senate passed a nearly $70 billion reconciliation bill for immigration enforcement early Friday morning after rejecting repeated attempts by members of both parties to prohibit or restrict a Justice Department "anti-weaponization" fund. On a mostly party-line vote of 52-47, the Senate sent to the House a bill designed to fund immigration agencies for the rest of President Donald Trump's term without new restrictions on federal immigration agents sought by Democrats. Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski was the sole Republican to join all Democrats in opposition. The vote on final passage capped an 18-hour "vote-a-rama" on amendments focused mostly on a nearly $1.8 billion fund announced last month designed to compensate alleged victims of political prosecutions. Critics denounced it as a "slush fund" to reward Trump loyalists who broke the law. While administration officials later bowed to the backlash and said the fund would not move forward, lawmakers of both parties were concerned it still could. They sought to prohibit it through a provision in the reconciliation bill. The most closely watched amendment, sponsored by Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., would restrict payouts from the fund only to law enforcement officers who died or suffered from the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol or their next of kin. And it would appropriate $100 million to the fund for that effort, offset by a cut to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Floor action slowed for hours overnight as Cassidy held talks with the Senate parliamentarian in hopes of securing guidance that would allow the amendment to be adopted with a simple-majority vote. But in the end, the amendment was deemed to require 60 votes — a threshold that virtually guaranteed its defeat. The vote was 52-47 in favor, falling eight votes shy of the 60 required. Six Republicans joined all Democrats in support of the measure. An initial attempt by Sen. Thom Tillis. R-N.C., to target the fund garnered a sliver of bipartisan support, but was defeated on a lopsided vote of 15-84. His amendment would have diverted the money to fraud enforcement efforts. But Democrats said the measure would just create a slush fund by another name, under the guise of fraud enforcement. The amendment process was also made more difficult when GOP leaders pulled $1.46 billion in Justice Department funding from the bill – meaning any related amendments wouldn't be considered germane and would face a higher 60-vote threshold to overcome a procedural objection. And the bill faced a serious challenge right out of the gate Thursday morning at the start of the vote-a-rama, when Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., offered a motion to send the bill back to the Judiciary Committee, a move that would have effectively killed it. Schumer was seeking to use that maneuver to push for a prohibition against the Justice Department fund. But the Senate rejected his motion on a 49-50 vote. While the focus of the bill was immigration enforcement, that topic was mostly an afterthought as the Justice Department fund consumed time and attention. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said early Thursday evening that he was concerned that if a fund amendment were included in the bill, it would be "problematic in the House and, probably, then ultimately getting it signed by the president." The Senate had previously punted on its plans for a vote-a-rama before the Memorial Day recess, largely due to concerns about navigating Republican opposition to the fund and potential Democratic amendments. <h2>Defeated amendments</h2> Democrats over the course of the vote-a-rama offered a slew of amendments as they sought to get Republicans on the record on a number of controversial issues, from immigration policy to health care cuts. None of them were adopted, but all could become campaign talking points this fall. Republicans, meanwhile, offered only a handful of amendments. A slew of largely Democratic amendments were shot down, with varying levels of GOP defection, after none crossed the threshold for adoption. <ul> <li>One amendment, from Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., would have blocked any funding for the White House East Wing modernization project, which features a 90,000-square-foot ballroom, without congressional authorization. A procedural motion defeated that amendment on a 53-46 vote, falling seven votes shy of the 60 required.</li> </ul> <ul> <li>Another, from Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., took aim at Trump's selection of Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte to serve as acting director of national intelligence. The amendment would have banned Senate-confirmed leaders of federal agencies and departments from serving as the DNI at the same time. It fell on a 49-49 vote.</li> </ul> And an amendment from Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., would have inserted the language from the so-called SAVE America Act (S 1383), which would require proof of citizenship to register to vote and photo identification at the polls, among other things. While Trump has pushed to abolish the Senate filibuster to pass that election measure with a simple majority instead of 60 votes, Republicans couldn't even muster a simple majority for it Thursday night. It fell on a vote of 48-50, with Tillis, Murkowski, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., siding with Democrats against the proposal. <h2>Next steps</h2> The filibuster-proof bill is designed to fund immigration enforcement agencies through the rest of Trump's term. Democrats have opposed that funding without imposing new restrictions on federal immigration agents to curb abuses after two U.S. citizens were fatally shot by agents in Minnesota earlier this year. While Trump had set a June 1 deadline for passing the bill, GOP leaders were hoping to pass it as early as this week through both chambers, until the House abruptly left town. House leaders offered no official reason for canceling votes Friday, though some sources cited concerns about attendance problems that risked hampering passage of the bill with the GOP's razor-thin majority. <em>Aris Folley and Paul M. Krawzak contributed to this report.</em>
