Senate Passes $70 Billion Immigration Enforcement Bill in Pre-Dawn Vote, Sending It to the House

The Senate passed a sweeping $70 billion immigration enforcement package early Friday, voting 52-47 just before 5 a.m. to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol for the next three years — a victory for President Donald Trump that caps weeks of delays and an all-night session of procedural warfare.

The final tally came at the end of a roughly 19-hour "vote-a-rama," the open-ended amendment marathon that is a hallmark of the filibuster-proof budget reconciliation process. Because the measure moved under reconciliation, Republicans needed only a simple majority and could not be blocked by a Democratic filibuster. Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska was the only Republican to break with her party and join all Democrats in opposing the bill.

The legislation directs $38.6 billion to ICE, $26 billion to Customs and Border Protection and another $5 billion to the Department of Homeland Security to spend on immigration enforcement at its own discretion. Taken together, the package locks in funding for the administration's enforcement apparatus through the end of Trump's term, insulating it from the annual appropriations fights that have repeatedly threatened to constrain the agencies.

The overnight drama centered less on the enforcement money than on a separate pot of cash that critics have dubbed Trump's "anti-weaponization" fund — a settlement account intended to compensate allies who claim they were politically persecuted by the previous administration. Senators from both parties offered repeated amendments to permanently bar the fund, but Republicans narrowly defeated each attempt, preserving the account in the final text.

Democrats blasted the measure as a blank check for an enforcement machine they say has trampled due process, while Republican leaders cast it as a long-overdue down payment on border security. "The American people voted for this," one GOP aide said of the enforcement surge, echoing the administration's framing that the funding fulfills a central 2024 campaign promise.

The bill now heads to the House, where its fate is less certain. House conservatives have previously clashed with the Senate over the size and conditions of DHS funding, and the chamber's narrow margins leave little room for defections. If the House passes the measure without changes, it would go to Trump's desk; any amendments would force the two chambers back into negotiations with the enforcement agencies' three-year funding hanging in the balance.