US Senate passes $70bn immigration bill after bitter fund fight

The United States Senate approved a $70 billion bill to fund immigration enforcement agencies early Friday morning, after an exhaustive all-night session that laid bare deep Republican divisions over a pet project of President Donald Trump. The 52-47 vote, with Alaska senator Lisa Murkowski joining all Democrats in opposition, clears the way for the House of Representatives to pass the legislation as early as next week, delivering Trump a hard-won victory on a signature campaign pledge. The funding will sustain Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol through the remainder of his term.

At the centre of the legislative drama was the administration’s controversial $1.776 billion ‘anti-weaponization’ fund, a settlement pot designed to compensate political allies who claim persecution by previous governments. Democrats and a faction of moderate Republicans sought to permanently bar the fund, arguing it amounts to a presidential slush fund. Viewed from London or Paris, the episode illustrates the normalisation of patronage politics within the Republican Party. In Latin America, where the deportation machinery will be felt most acutely, the bill is seen as a direct threat to migrant communities, with the extra billions likely to accelerate an already aggressive enforcement campaign.

Republicans used budget reconciliation rules to circumvent a Democratic filibuster, triggering a so-called vote-a-rama in which senators plodded through a blizzard of amendments. The process stretched for eighteen hours, ending just before dawn on Friday. Skeptics within the GOP, including senators concerned about ballooning deficits and presidential overreach, ultimately fell in line after Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche signalled the Justice Department would not move forward with the fund. Yet, as analysts in Washington note, a pre-existing Judgment Fund could still be used to make similar payouts, leaving the underlying controversy unresolved.

The bill now heads to the Republican-controlled House, where its passage is all but assured. For Trump, the victory shores up a cornerstone of his domestic agenda after months of partisan gridlock that included a record partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security. But the bitter infighting that preceded the vote signals a party increasingly unnerved by the president’s expansive use of executive power. From the Middle East to East Asia, observers see in this episode the continuing strain on American democratic institutions, even as the machinery of state is mobilised for an immigration crackdown that will resonate across borders.